


Beauty in the Beast

by raendown



Series: Requested Works [23]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Beauty and the Beast AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2020-12-31 15:04:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 48,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21147683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raendown/pseuds/raendown
Summary: When his brother disappears coming home from town Madara goes looking for him only for both to end up taken prisoner in a castle hidden by magic generations ago. The candelabras talk, the furniture sleeps, and a great white beast hides himself away in the eastern wing. As he uncovers the story behind this place and gets to know the last small group of 'survivors' Madara gradually makes a new home here in the least likely of places.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Officer_Jennie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Officer_Jennie/gifts).

> A "Requested Work" for Jennie, who tempted me with something I could not resist. 
> 
> Loosely based on Disney's animated Beauty and the Beast with several massive changes.

Waking his little brother after a particularly rough night was never a pleasant task. Madara sat on the edge of Izuna’s mattress and dabbed at the young man’s sweaty forehead with a damp cloth, praying to whatever gods might listen to take this sickness once and for all. If they were nobility then maybe they could have afforded a better doctor than the witch healer one town over, maybe they could have figured out what was really wrong and found a cure, but they weren’t nobility. Of all the injustices in the world Madara hated most the ones that laid his brothers low.

Once their house had been a bustling and lively place full of love and family. Now there were three graves in the back field and his parents’ room stood waiting even now several years after the occupants had promised to return quickly from seeking new fortune. Madara could remember clearly the day he finally accepting that it was the two of them against the world, the day he had knelt in the shrine behind their home and cursed the gods for uncaring bastards, vowing to hold on to the last of his family with the same boneheaded stubbornness with which this illness clung to Izuna’s chest.

Running one hand through long dark hair, Madara hummed the same soft tune he had rocked his brother to sleep with as a babe.

“The sun is up,” he chided the younger man gently. “I already did your chores for you, you lazy lay about.”

“Gggggrrrmmmph.”

“An excellent argument. You still have to get up.”

Very slowly Izuna’s eyes opened and Madara was relieved to see there was no shine of fever in them. The night had been rough but it looked like the day may not be as bad as he’d thought, excellent luck for the journey his brother had ahead of him.

“I packed for you as well. And fed the horse. But you’ll need to feed yourself because I need to get to work, alright?” As he spoke his fingers continued moving, stroking the damp hair away from Izuna’s face. His brother shuffled around under the covers until his arms were free to reach up and hold Madara's hand in place. “Let go, you leech. I need to go and so do you.”

With a tremendous sigh Izuna let go and let both arms flop to the sides. “It’s a long journey.”

“Then you’d best get started. The sooner you set off the sooner you can be home again. If you get home fast enough I might be convinced to make you some rabbit stew for dinner, that usually makes you feel better.” With one more ruffle Madara stood up and rolled his shoulders to loosen them in preparation of a day’s work.

As he stepped out of the room and shut the door behind him he could hear Izuna beginning to cough and he winced, glad that today his brother would be getting at least some relief. Their tiny, nameless village being too small to warrant a physician of their own, Izuna travelled every two or three months to see the witch doctor in the closest actual town. Madara would prefer to seek the help of someone a little more reputable but even that hack healer’s services had slowly been chipping away at whatever savings he tried to gather, emptying his purse again and again with every visit. Still, he couldn’t exactly bring himself to regret the money spent. An empty purse was better than one more grave in the back field.

Dawn sunlight spread her fingers across the sky as he stepped outside to head for the largest building in their village, an inn which also doubled as the tavern where old men gathered to jaw the day away and young man came to cool their parched throats after long hours working their fields. For all that Madara was bred and built for farm work their family had no land of their own and so he earned his money caring for the stables at the inn every day from dawn until well after dusk.

His work wasn’t nearly as hard as many others in their small little corner of the world and Madara did try to give his best to every task, caring for the horses that came in however he could, hoping that they enjoyed the rest after their own hours of labor. The only problem he had lay in the fact that most of the other villagers looked down on the last surviving Uchiha boys. Stablehand they called him, never his name, and to Izuna they made signs of the cross to ward off whatever evil had given him his sickness. If their father had ever given them one good gift in life it was the gift of pride enough for Madara to hold his head high no matter how many times one of the local farmers came riding in to the tavern courtyard and ordered him around like a lord with a servant, demanding more than Madara had any way of giving.

Today wasn’t so bad, to his relief. Days when Izuna left for town were always days full of distraction, his thoughts constantly wandering away from him down the road, but the village folk weren’t always as forgiving. Madara knew it was because the rain had encouraged many of them to stay home rather than ride in to the village square for a few drinks and he was glad of the chance to let his mind stray after his brother as it so often did during these visits.

Of the people that did come to the tavern very few arrived during what would have been daylight hours if not for the pall of the autumn storms arriving much later in the season than usual. Madara greeted their mounts before the men and spoke softly under his breath as he removed saddles, offered hay, or toweled down wet coats until they were dry enough for a quick brush. Since he knew that none of them would be leaving very soon he made sure to house each mount in stables close to each other so they could lean over the stable doors and nose at each other as they tended to do. The horses here knew each other’s faces as well as their humans’.

When evening fell several more arrived but still not nearly as many as usually showed up in better weather. On some days in winter when there were less crops to tend to it was common for Madara to be kept running back and forth between this stable and the barn out where he usually brought the mounts when there were no more stables left unoccupied, frantic to see to everyone’s needs while also dealing with farmers who thought themselves more important than the mayor. Today he found quite a bit of time to lounge inside one of the stalls, napping quickly and knowing he was safe from crashing hooves, dreaming unhappily of all the terrible things that never happened but he still insisted on worrying about. Just because he knew that Izuna was smart enough to avoid the spots where bandits commonly waited did not mean there would never be a bandit clever enough to hide somewhere new.

At the end of the day Madara was fairly chomping at the bit to go home and soothe his overactive imagination with proof that his brother was just fine. He barely managed to wait until the boy who watched the stables at night arrived before bolting out the door and hurrying along the dusty roads out of the town square. Never did the walk feel so long as when he needed it to be shorter.

If he had been hoping for good news, however, he was left unsatisfied. Horror filled him instead as he approached their home to find their old mare standing outside the pasture that had always been just a little too small for her, saddle and bridle still in place and very clearly growing uncomfortable. Madara broke out in to a run. The mare snorted at him when he took the reins and pet her nose, lipping gratefully at his hand when he offered a carrot out of sheer habit.

“Where is Izuna?” he asked even though he knew it was ridiculous. A horse could not answer.

One glance at the saddle told him that his worst nightmares had been realized at last. Izuna’s bags were still there, no effort made to remove them or the tack, and that was all he needed to know. Even during the worst of his fits Izuna had always insisted on at least attempting to make the horse comfortable before he found his own rest.

“I know you’re tired,” Madara whispered, fear choking his words. “Please work just a little longer. We have to find him.”

Glad that he was already dressed for the evening chill, uncaring of the rain wetting his hair, he swung up in to the saddle and gently guided his mare around back the way it seemed she had come all on her own, following the roads home as she had a hundred times before even without a rider to show her the way.

Outside the village where no lanterns were lit and no fire burned brightly through curtained windows it was hard to see more than few feet in front of his own mount. Even the moon was barely a help once they entered the forest not too far past the last of his neighbor’s houses. Madara cursed softly under his breath and gently patted the mare’s neck, mumbling apologies and hoping that she didn’t stumble. A broken knee was the opposite of what he needed at the moment.

It was the darkness that began him on the journey that would change his life. Madara had lived in this village since he was born, had travelled these roads and scampered through the forests since he learned to walk on his own two legs. He knew every path like he knew the callouses on his own hands. It should have been impossible for him to take the wrong way but in the dark it was easy to mistake one copse of trees for another and so he turned where, if daylight were filtering through the leaves, he would have known he should not have been able to turn. He rode with his eyes squinted tightly as he tried to make shapes out of the shadows and continued on unaware of what awaited him.

Finally there came something he could not ignore or explain away as one tree that might look similar to another. A light in the distance that should not be there drew his attention until the mare came to an abrupt halt and tossed her head. Madara brought his eyes back to the path and found that he had arrived at a massive gate half again taller than himself. His eyes widened. With one hand he calmed the mare and with the other he held tighter to the reins, almost afraid to discover what lay beyond. No gate should have been here in this forest. Indeed, nothing but beasts should live in these woods besides the witch that was said to haunt one of the lakes to the east and yet even her he had never seen any signs of in all his years of exploration. Madara swallowed thickly, considered the light in the distance once more, and came to a decision. Now was not the time to explore such mysteries.

At least, that was his thought until he shifted his weight with the intention of turning the mare only to freeze as his eyes found a new surprise that captured him entirely. He would know that jacket anywhere. Faded blue ribbon sewn along the collar, patched a dozen times and more, he had made that jacket with his own two hands for Izuna’s fifteenth birthday using the last of the funds their parents had left for them when they disappeared to never return.

Now it lay bloody and torn on the ground just inside the gate, visible by a shaft of moonlight breaking through the clouds just as his eyes passed in that direction.

With panic suffusing his being Madara all but threw himself bodily off of his mount and lunged around the open gates to pick up his brother’s jacket, holding it like a precious sheet of glass. His horror only increased to see that the tears appeared to be caused by what looked like teeth. Just thinking about what that could mean was so distracting he very nearly didn’t notice the footprints but when he did Madara folded his knees to squint at the ground, jacket still clutched tightly to his chest. Both human and animal tracks danced across each other following a path towards that distant light.

And so he must follow, obviously. Izuna had never been quite as hardy as him even before the sickness began wasting his body and Madara had never once resented his self-imposed duty of shouldering as many of the other’s burdens as possible. Protecting the last of his family was something he would have done even if he hadn’t loved Izuna as his entire world.

The mare nickered softly when he swung around to her and pulled at the oilskin bags still tied to her back so he could rummage through the contents. Having packed them himself he knew exactly where to look and gave a low cry of triumph when his fingers closed around the handle of a small torch. In another small pocket he found flint and a knife, all of which he pulled out and hurried just far enough away from his mount that he could light the torch without causing her to panic and bolt away when he needed her most. She was silent when he swung back up in to the saddle, moving forward easily when he nudged her to do so with his light held high and hissing angrily in the rain.

Yellow light spilled ahead of them as they walked, illuminating the never-ending trail of footprints always moving steadily towards what looked to be another torch in the distance. Paw prints almost seemed to walk right over top of the human tracks like the animals were stalking the prey they had allowed to get away. Or perhaps they were chasing, though by the pattern Madara would have guessed only Izuna to be running.

He was so caught up in watching the ground that he almost failed entirely to notice the massive shapes looming out of the darkness until one moment he was alone on a trail and the next he understood that it was, in fact, a driveway as he lifted his head to find himself staring up at a looming castle. It was impossible that there should be anything even a quarter of this size anywhere near these woods and yet here it was. Massive blocks of stone carved in to gruesome shapes guarded the entrance of an honest to god palace, towers and turrets reaching up out of sight to the rainclouds above. Even craning his neck backwards to look up Madara could not see the rooftops but he could see hundreds of windows in patterns of stained glass, their subjects hidden by the darkness around him.

And of course it was as he took in the incredible sights before him that his torch finally gave in to nature, too wet at last to go on. Madara grunted in surprise when he was plunged in to darkness. Then he grunted again as he tossed the now-useless stick of wood aside and gently slipped out of the saddle, leading his mare around to where he had spotted a small alcove with water and hay ready for visitors.

“I know it’s been a long day for you already,” he murmured a he tied the lead to a misshaped gargoyle. “Please bear it just a little longer until I make sure he’s okay. I’m sure they’ll let us rest for the night too if they’ve already taken him in. Gods but I hope they took him in…”

With his heart clenched as tightly as his fists, no weapon to keep close now that he’d stupidly thrown away the torch he could have used as a club, Madara approached the doors of the castle and hoped that someone might still be awake to answer his call. The sound his fists made against wood reverberated around him like a drum yet still somehow managed to sound too small for the space. He cringed even as he tried again after a few minutes had gone by with no response. If he needed to bloody his knuckles banging on the door or wake the whole castle screaming he was not leaving this place until he was certain of Izuna’s fate here at the end of the footprints.

On the fourth round of knocking he heard a click and the door swung open a few inches as though unlocked from the inside. Madara blinked, freezing in place. No face popped in to view and the door was not pulled further open. It was possible he had rattled the latch open with his banging, in which case he knew that it would be the height of poor manners to enter without an invitation.

He didn’t care.

Inside the foyer it was warm and dry compared to the weather outdoors and yet the massive space carried the same pervasive chill characteristic of all large buildings made from stone. Madara shivered just looking around and thinking of how awful it would be to live in a place like this.

“Hello?” he called out, hoping at least for someone to come light a fire while he asked his questions.

When he received no answer Madara stepped a bit further in, squinting around as best he could. Though the moon seemed to be coming out of hiding from behind the clouds her rays could only barely penetrate the thick layer of dust and grime coating the inside of each windowpane. From what he could make out Madara thought he could see marble tile at his feet and a barren expanse of emptiness where he would have thought any noble rich enough to have a castle would have flaunted their wealth with opulent furniture. The lack of wood or carpet to fill the room made every shift and step echo twice as loudly as it should have.

“Is anyone here?” he tried again, reluctantly raising his voice. “My brother- he was lost on the road. I have reason to believe he took shelter here. He’s very sick, I just want to know he’s alright.”

No answer came still, though for a moment he thought he heard someone scurrying behind him. When he turned there was nothing but a candelabra with three candlesticks waiting on a table like a gift from the gods. Madara wondered how he hadn’t noticed it before even as he hurried over and began rifling through the drawers of the table it was on looking for a match or flint or anything. He rumbled with satisfaction to finally come up with a long match that he struck and used to light all three candles. New shadows danced along the walls when he turned and cast about the room with better vision.

The place looked even more cold and empty in the light – but that was not what caught his eye. In a tall chair by a cold fireplace on the far side of the room where he hadn’t been able to see through the darkness there sat a pair of boots that were all too familiar. Raising the candelabra Madara looked down. More footprints. He needed no more proof to know that his brother was here, though by the single trail of prints it looked like he had been alone when he made his way to the chair. Madara followed the prints and knelt down to brush his fingers against the leather, unsurprised to find them barely damp. They had been abandoned here some time ago.

Standing again, Madara looked around and harrumphed. The servants here must be poorly trained for absolutely no one to have answered his call. Even at this time of night there should always be someone awake to welcome callers; he wasn’t even a member of the gentry and he knew that.

“If no one will invite me then I’ll just have to invite myself,” he grumbled under his breath.

Armed with his borrowed candelabra Madara strode out for the grand staircase he knew would have caught his eye if he were Izuna. No more footsteps had marked the dust in any direction after they reached the chair, extremely suspicious but not impossible if the dust had since been disturbed and then allowed to settle again. It would be an outlandish coincidence that it only happened on one side of that chair by the fireplace and not the other but not completely impossible.

On the second floor Madara took the left path mostly by whim – until he realized he could hear distant voices in that direction. Finally having signs of human life to pull him onward, he hurried his steps and called out, unsurprised but a little annoyed to get no answer again. For as long as he followed the voices they strangely never seemed to get any louder. No matter if he walked slower or faster the voices seemed always several halls away, muffled as though by the walls between or by hands being held in front of their mouths. By the time Madara realized he was no longer walking through richly decorated hallways but had entered some sort of barren stone tower he had passed annoyed and moved on to angry.

“Whatever the game is here,” he said to himself, “I do not appreciate it.” There was really no point in lowering his volume considering how no one ever seemed close enough to hear him in a place like this. Which meant, obviously, that this was the time someone did hear him.

“Madara?” That voice was familiar, beloved, and much too small.

“Izuna! Where are you?”

Just inside the light of his candelabra he could see a pale arm jutting out in to the hallway and waving about as he heard, “I’m here! Can you see me?”

Madara very nearly dropped his only source of light in the scramble to reach his brother. Then he almost dropped it again with shock as he reached the spot where he’d seen that desperately waving arm and he realized why Izuna hadn’t just come out in to the hallway entirely. He was caged! The tower he had found his way in to was a dungeon of sorts with one poor sickly prisoner locked inside of a cold and empty room, not even a blanket to keep him off the floor.

“What happened?” Madara demanded as he fell to his knees and haphazardly placed the candles aside so he could take the freezing cold hands reaching for him. “How the hell did you end up here?”

“You have to go!”

“Are you insane, Otouto? I’m not going anywhere without you! Where are the guards? I’m sure I can reason with them; or scream them down if I have to.”

“No you can’t! Please just go. You don’t understand, if you stay then he’ll find you!”

Madara snorted, reaching farther in to pull more of that shaking body towards the warmth he had to offer. “Don’t be daft. Whatever dumbass noble was stupid enough to lock you up – for what? Trespassing after you were clearly attacked by wolves? – I’m sure I could take him. One fist in the nose and he’ll be begging me to let him unlock this door.”

Pride, he’d been told a time or two in his life, was the reason he’d experienced so many troubles already so early in life. It had ever been his biggest downfall. Watching the horror fill his brother’s face as Izuna’s eyes slid away from his own and rose up, up, up with stark terror writ plainly in their depths, Madara wondered who his pride had led him to insult this time. He refused to show any sign of nerves as he twisted to look over his shoulder, braced, determined to stand his ground until this unlawful imprisonment was reversed.

He was met first with the sight of pale white fur, so much that he wondered if perhaps the wolves that attacked before had followed his brother here in to the castle. Then he noticed that the legs were much too long and bipedal. As he lifted his eyes he watched the fur fade away to white flesh, two arms hanging low with hands that were almost human but for the long claws sharp at the end of each finger. Burned across the creature’s clavicle was a symbol like a double ended pitchfork that almost called to something in the back of his memory where Madara could not spare a moment to reach for the connection. He tilted his head back and very carefully clamped his teeth down on the scream which rose up as terror filled him too.

Red eyes glowed even in the shadows they watched him from several feet above where his own height would reach if he were standing. The features were almost disturbingly human but twisted and hidden behind the unruly shag of a thick white mane, two horns as thick as his own wrists rising from the mess to twist back and then soar upwards again. Markings that had either been painted or burned or even scarred in to the skin drew lines across that terrifying face.

And then the mouth opened, lips parting to reveal sharp teeth, and a rumbling snarl spilled out so deep Madara felt it vibrating in his very bones.

“The prisoner remains,” the beast declared. “He was caught trespassing on my property much the same as you now do so yourself. If you do not wish to join him in the cell then I must insist you leave and forget that you were ever here.”

“How the hell could I forget _you_?” Madara demanded in his shock. Unsurprisingly, the beast bared even more teeth in response.

“You will forget. All who survive to leave this place forget.”

Since Madara had no idea what that meant he really had no idea of what to say. His mind was entirely empty of everything but the feral need to run as far and as fast as he could from this living nightmare that stood just waiting to consume him. And he remained that way, frozen and scared but too proud to scream, until a hand reached through the bars behind him to grasp his fingers and he remembered Izuna. Tired and ill Izuna who would die if he stayed here in a place like this, drafty and without access to his medicine.

“Let me take his place,” he bartered.

“Brother no!”

“Please,” he went on, ignoring his sibling’s outburst. “He is ill, he was only on the road to seek help for the sickness. If you have to punish anyone then let me stay and be your prisoner.”

At his back Izuna gave a sob that nearly shattered his heart in his chest but he held strong, lifting his chin and staring this beast in his glowing red eyes. For so many years he had tucked his brother in to bed and kissed him on the head with promises that he would always be ready to stand as a wall against whatever dangers befell them. Now was the time to be a man of his word. If giving himself over to whatever evil purpose this beast needed a human sacrifice for could save his brother he would do so more willingly than he drew his next breath.

Unfamiliar voices murmured in the shadows but Madara didn’t dare look away no matter how much he wanted to glare at the ones who had led him here to his fate.

“You swear that you will remain here and make no attempts to escape?” the beast growled. Madara swallowed against the lump in his throat and nodded.

“I swear.”

“So be it.” For one shining moment relief swept through his veins and he thought that he had won an easy victory. Then suddenly he found himself being lifted bodily from the ground with an almost casual swipe of one clawed hand, the door to Izuna’s cell torn open for him to be tossed inside like a rag doll. “Ancient magics hear your words, human. Now you are bound to this place and your brother to you. Enjoy your imprisonment.”

“What!?”

Madara let Izuna scramble to help him off the floor but the moment he had regained his feet he was rushing to the door that slammed shut in his face, fingers wrapping around the bars to watch his jailor storm down the hallway with ponderous steps.

“Please don’t,” Izuna tried but it was no use.

“You can’t do this! This is unlawful imprisonment! Why are you doing this you…you…-!”

Half faded in to shadows as he moved out of the light, the beast turned back to regard him with cold eyes and an expression that might almost be sad were it not for the inhumanity of his twisted body.

“Monster?” the thing finished for him in a low rumble and as he stared after the retreating form Madara couldn’t help but agree.


	2. Chapter 2

In the wake of the monster’s departure a deep silence stretched out for a long time. Izuna rested his head between Madara's shoulder blades knowing there were no words that could help either of them feel better at the moment. Neither of them said anything until his body began to shake with coughs and Madara spun to gather the other in his arms, helping him sit and patting his back gently until the fit passed.

“You’ll die in here,” he whispered, horrified. “I failed. I…”

“There’s nothing you could have done, Aniki. It’s not your fault.”

Madara shook his head. Logically he understood that the chain of events had not started with him but if he could not blame Izuna then there was simply no one else to carry that burden. How could he ever blame his sibling for running towards the only visible beacon of safety if he were being chased by wolves? In all the years Madara had lived he’d never heard of wolves actively attacking humans, generally they stayed away as most other wildlife did, so he could understand why someone might panic in that situation.

“We made our best attempts to stop him!” a voice cried from nearby. Madara lifted his head to look around but despite the candelabra still sitting just outside the barred door he couldn’t see anyone there.

“Show yourself! Who’s there?”

“I am here in front of you!”

The light before them flickered but the dancing shadows revealed no new faces even when he squinted.

“Quit hiding,” he growled. “I don’t see anyone.” He rubbed Izuna’s back soothingly as they both craned their necks side to side in search of whoever was talking to them. That was definitely not the creature’s voice.

“Down here, good sir!” the voice tried once more and this time when the light wavered Madara noticed the candelabra was moving.

He also noticed there was no one there to move it.

The candelabra was waving at him. And the longer he stared the longer it continued to wave, some of the filigree near the top of the main post _shifting_ as if to form what looked like an honest to god smile. When both he and Izuna failed to so much as move, staring with equally wide eyes and frozen bodies, eventually the candelabra stopped waving and bent both of its secondary arms down in a mockery of the way a human might set both hands on their hips.

“Well I must say, how rude,” it seemed to scold them. “Not even allowing for a proper greeting. Where are your manners?”

“Izuna can you hear that?”

“Yeah.”

“Is it…is it talking to us?”

“Yeah.”

“Are we dreaming?”

Without warning the entire candlestick holder bent as though to toss its head back and began to laugh. “Oh, how rude of _me_! I’m so terribly sorry. It’s been so long, I quite forgot how strange I must appear to you! I assure you that we are all quite real!”

“Merciful gods above, Aniki, are there more of them!?” Izuna moaned with despair and Madara reached back to pat him on whatever he could reach, possibly a leg.

“It must be something in the magic of this place driving us mad. Maybe we should play along?”

He jerked when his brother struck him weakly. “Are you nuts? It’s a talking stick of wax! What are you going to do, talk back?”

“There doesn’t seem to be anyone else in this entire castle to talk to. Did you notice all the dust? It’s like no human has been in here for centuries.” Madara shrugged. “I’ll take a candlestick delivering my meals over whatever the hell that beast is!”

“Simply no manners at all; continuing to ignore me.” They looked over to see, of all things, that the candelabra had crouched down on to the floor and curled in to itself. As they watched it began to shake with dramatic sobs. Madara considered just waiting to see what would happen but the damn thing just sounded so pathetic and he had to admit he was curious. This place was full of strange magics. If he could ask a few questions and understand even a small bit of his own situation he would appreciate it.

“Uh…sorry about that. It’s…I’ve never talked to a candle before.” Even Izuna cringed over his awkwardness.

The candelabra, however, popped back to its ‘feet’ as though it had never been sad in the first place. “Quite alright! You may call me Hashirama! May I know your names, good sirs?”

“I’m Madara. This is Izuna. What…is this place?”

“Ah, it would be hard to explain here. Come, come, come along. I will gather the others!” With ringing plinks and plonks he began to hop away down the hall, the metal of his body echoing on the stone floor.

He didn’t get very far before Madara called after him in a dry tone, “Thanks but I think I’ll stay here. Doesn’t matter how much weight I’ve lost this past year, I still don’t think I’m going to fit through these bars!”

With a startled exclamation Hashirama turned and hopped back in their direction, leaping up to pop the latch and then backing away to gesture for them to come out in to the hallways with him. Still they both hesitated. If seeking shelter was the only crime that got Izuna locked up and trying to find his ill brother got Madara locked up as well then who knew what that crazy animal would do to them if he discovered they were wandering around freely? Seeing their hesitation, Hashirama shook what might have counted as his head.

“I beg of you to believe me, he is not a terrible person. Circumstances have made him distant and wary but inside he is a good man. If only he believed it of himself.”

“You’ll forgive us if we don’t believe that,” Izuna grumbled.

“Please, come along! He is possessed of quite a temper at times but rest assured he would never hurt me. I will convince him to see sense about locking the two of you away in this drafty tower, don’t you worry.”

Still smiling cheerfully he began to plink away down the hall again, pausing every few hops to beckon them along. The two brothers traded long dubious looks before finally Madara muttered under his breath that they might as well. If the monster was unpredictable enough to lock them away then he probably wouldn’t hesitate to eat them or something for making his magic candle thing cry twice. Either way they were going to catch hell so why not explore a little bit and get their answers before death found them?

Hashirama was an incredibly enthusiastic guide unhampered by his tiny size. The sounds of his incessant hopping were thankfully muted as soon as they exited that particular tower and returned to carpeted hallways but it hadn’t mattered much anyway as he chattered incessantly about the history of the castle and how long ago it had been built. Madara and Izuna shared a doubtful look, both of them knowing such massive grounds as it would take to house a castle this size would definitely have been noticed by at least one villager in the past few hundred years, but neither said anything. With a terrifying monster in charge of things there was obviously some kind of magic at work here, they could have deduced that much even without being told.

And to think Madara hadn’t even truly believed in magic until tonight.

Their chipper guide being the only source of light, they were sort of beholden to his long-winded tour but from the sheer amount of words spilling out of him it seemed like he hadn’t had anyone to talk to in a very long time. Madara found he didn’t quite have the heart to interrupt such earnest happiness. At least the history of the castle was quite interesting; on the rare occasion he found time for himself Madara had always enjoyed slipping in to their village’s very small library and reading up on the history of the land around them. He was proud to say he’d read at least half of the books in the library. His favorite were always the lurid battle descriptions and the long explanations of tactics or favored weapons.

“Oh but you must be weary after such a fraught evening! Allow me to show you gentlemen to your room, of course!” Hashirama paused at yet another juncture in the endless hallways and beckoned for them to come along before hurrying off in another direction.

“Room?” Izuna muttered quietly in Madara's ear. “He’s not sticking us back in the cell?”

Madara could only shrug. He was hardly going to complain about being offered more comfortable accommodations. For a fleeting moment he considered waiting until they were unsupervised and making a break for it. There didn’t seem to be any sort of guard rotation or security posted. He would bet that two able bodied men could escape if they could find their way out – as long as Izuna didn’t have any coughing fits and draw attention to them.

The moment he began to think about such things, however, he felt a twisting down deep in his soul that cried out with a sense of _wrongness_ that he understood immediately, though he could not have said how. He was still recovering from how oddly winded the feeling had left him when Hashirama finally came to a stop in front of a door carved with the same simple design many other doors had been. Madara was startled to realize it was the same symbol burnt in to the monster’s chest across his collar bones.

“Here we are! You need only ask and I will see to your every comfort! Oh, we will have such fun together, I am so sure! Wonderful to have guests again! Come, come!” With a double hop Hashirama leapt straight up off the floor to grasp the door handle with both hands, wriggling his entire metal body back and forth.

“Do you…want help with that?” Madara asked hesitantly.

“I am most capable, fear not!”

And so he was. The door unlatched with a soft slick and swung open, carrying Hashirama's light away so they couldn’t see the inside until their guide dropped down to the floor and hustled inside ahead of them. There he went around and bent his head to light a few candles so they could get a first glimpse of their massive room.

Both of their jaws fell open as they stared in open wonder at the opulence around them. Thick carpet at their feet led the way to matching beds, each with their own heavy canopies and bedding so decorated Madara would have expected to find them being displayed as wall hangings in the mayor’s home. A matching wardrobe and vanity set stood between the two beds, all four pieces shaped from the same dark wood and intricately carved, any one of them more expensive on their own than the entire contents of the Uchiha household back home. Dust covered every inch of the room and still it was not enough to stop the two brothers from thinking it was a room fit for two princes to stay.

Yet Hashirama hemmed and hawed, tapping at his chin with one arm candle and wondering out loud if this was truly fit accommodations for them. Madara wondered silently how there could be anything better.

“If you would prefer separate rooms we could move to the apartments in the southern wing,” he offered.

“No, this is…fine. This is great.” Madara swallowed thickly. “We can really stay here?”

“This is _incredible_,” Izuna declared without reservation, daring to step forward and brush his fingers over the intricate patterns stitched in to the bedding. Hashirama tutted at them.

“Serviceable at best. However, if it pleases you then I shan’t keep you awake any longer than necessary. Oh we really should shake out the dust at least – but you do so look tired. I simply cannot decide!”

The metal idiot looked so distraught Madara could only lift an eyebrow in bemusement. “We can shake out our own bedding.”

“Are you certain?”

“It’s just dust. Dust never killed anyone. Except you, Izuna, just sit down or something and let me get yours.”

While Izuna rolled his eyes and Hashirama continued to fret, Madara stripped the duvet off both beds and snapped them in the air a few times each, cringing for having to be so rough with such beautifully crafted pieces of art. After they were both tucked back over to the beds again he turned and flopped backwards on to the one he arbitrarily decided would be his own.

Then he moaned like a cheap lady of the night.

“Oh sweet flame…I’m floating on a cloud…”

Silence followed his statement for a single heartbeat. Then he heard Izuna scramble towards the other bed and the muffled thump of another body sinking in to layers of luxurious bedding. His brother immediately let out a moan just as he had.

“Is this what heaven feels like?” Izuna asked in a dreamy voice.

“Nnn…”

“Ah ha ha ha!” Hashirama's tinny little voice somehow managed to boom all throughout their massive room when he laughed. “I shall leave the two of you until morning then, shall I? Rest well! Tomorrow the tour continues!”

Madara gave very little thought to any sort of response. He managed to crack one eye open to see that Izuna had slipped under the blankets and disappeared, no more than a slight lump among so much fluff, then his eyes slid closed and the comfort of a real mattress under his body carried him down in to slumber as quickly as the snuffing out of Hashirama's candles.

He slept so deeply he did not dream. Or he thought he didn’t. Unless the impression of endless hours in the darkness, cool and comforting, counting as a dream.

Waking came slowly, a gradual drift from one darkness to another, and it took a long time for him to realize he couldn’t see anything because he had rolled over in his sleep and buried his face in what felt like a cloud of happiness. Upon lifting his head he determined it to be just a pillow, albeit the softest pillow he had ever encountered in his life. Which, to be fair, was a very limited number.

Slowly pushing himself in to a sitting position, Madara looked around and took a few minutes to let it sink in that everything from the night before had not been some fancy of his own imagination. He really was in a far too opulent room fit for kings and queens with Izuna just barely struggling his way up out of sleep on the far side of the room. With sunlight spilling in through the open drapes he saw beautiful details that he hadn’t been able to in the dark. Each wall was hung with incredibly delicate artwork and the edges of the ceiling looked as though they had been painted by hand. Underneath the dust he could tell that the carpet was woven with a repeating pattern of rich red and golds.

“This place is insane,” were the first words out of Izuna’s mouth as he too took in the spectacle of such grandeur in the light of day.

“Yeah. I don’t think I’ve ever slept so well in my life. Which is weird since, you know, prisoners and all that.”

Izuna sat up a little straighter and coughed a few times, settling his face in a serious expression. “I mean, it’s nice and everything. This is cool. But we can’t stay. We have to get the hell out of here, you know? There’s no telling why that _thing_ wants to keep us!”

Running a hand through his hair, Madara hesitated.

“Look, I didn’t want you to worry last night. It’s been a long time since you slept well through the night and I just wanted…anyway. Here’s the thing. I can’t leave.” When Izuna opened his mouth Madara interrupted him. “I don’t know how to explain it but I can’t. You remember that creature made me swear that I would stay here and not try to leave? He said I was bound here. And…I think he meant that more literally than we knew.”

“Bullshit! Come on, we can just slip out while that candle thing isn’t here!”

“Hashirama has nothing to do with it. Look, the creature said that ancient magics were listening when I swore not to leave and now whenever I think about escaping I get this twist inside me that- I can’t go. It makes me feel wrong to think about it. I can’t say how I know but I don’t think I would survive leaving.”

Izuna slumped back down when he had been about to stand up. His entire body looked wilted with defeat and Madara could not have felt more terrible.

“You’re not the one who is bound,” he tried to offer. “I don’t think he meant anything bad would happen if you were the one that left.”

“Like hell I’m leaving without you!”

“Great. Wonderful. I knew you’d say something dumb.” Madara rolled his eyes.

“The only dumb thing here is this stupid castle!”

It was all too likely the two of them would have taken out their infamous tempers on each other if left to their own devices for much longer, something that happened all too frequently at home. Luckily they were interrupted by a knocking at the door and treated to the sight of Hashirama's metal smile as he popped his head in to the room.

“Best of mornings to you both, I trust you slept well?”

“Decent,” Madara grunted.

Hashirama tittered, unoffended. “I’ve come to fetch you for a morning meal!”

Afraid that if he refused he would have to stay here and listen to Izuna have a meltdown over the fact that he couldn’t leave, Madara hopped off the bed and gave a sharp nod. He waited until Izuna followed along and then allowed himself to be trudged off down twisting hallways that looked so different now after the shadows had been chased away by the sun.

Last night the castle had given the impression of being forgotten by time, a gloomy space caught between worlds, but now it resembled more of an abandoned mausoleum. Suits of armor and statues and expensive pottery provided decoration to keep them busy gawking in every direction until they were led down to the first floor by the same sweeping grand staircase Madara had climbed on his own in the dark. What he had taken for an empty atrium looked more like a grand receiving room well suited for social gatherings and the like. A strange place, for sure.

The kitchens, at least, had a modicum of normalcy. Madara supposed it didn’t matter how much money was involved, kitchens the world over were bound to look at least slightly similar. It didn’t matter that there were a dozen stoves instead of one or that the counter for preparations ran several times as long as his own handcrafted wooden counter at home. What mattered was that he felt some of the gathering tension drain away to know that here was a place he belonged to more than the fancy frippery covering the rest of the castle.

“My dearest, my darling,” Hashirama called in to the cavernous room. “Oh love of my life!”

“If you think to flatter me in to some favor you are sorely mistaken,” a new voice answered.

Madara almost thought his eyes might fall out when a tessen fan drifted around the corner with no hand to guide it, gliding along several inches above the floor seemingly of its own volition. When it stopped in midair he was startled to see the ribs snap open to their fullest extension, giving him a direct view of the pattern inked in to lacquered paper, and he very nearly fainted dead away when the pattern shifted across the paper to form a face with pinched lips and narrow eyes.

“Our guests, I presume,” the fan declared. It was a woman’s voice and not very warm.

“Yes my sweetest.” Hashirama blew the fan an ostentatious kiss which lit one of his candles and then gestured to the two men with him. “This here is Madara and there beside him is Izuna. Brothers from the nearby village.”

“I suppose you wish me to cook for them.”

“Would that I had any other to ask,” Hashirama responded softly.

Amazingly, the pattern-woman unpinched her lips until her expression had relaxed in to something more pensive than irritated. Dipping in the air like she was nodding, the tessen fan drifted away without another word to stoke the embers back to life under a nearby stove. Madara watched her go with his brows up near his hairline. When he looked back Hashirama was wearing a besotted expression.

“My wife Mito” he explained. “A braver woman could never be found in any kingdom.”

“How exactly does a talking candlestick end up married to an animated war fan?” Madara blurted, immediately dropping his face in to one hand at his own lack of tact. He felt a fist impact his shoulder but couldn’t bring himself to scold Izuna; he did sort of deserve it.

Luckily Hashirama took no offense, though he did fall somber once more.

“We were not always this way,” Mito said as she slid her body under a loaf of bread and bore it over to the closest countertop.

“It is a curse laid upon the castle. Once we were as human as you are.” Hashirama leapt up to the counter and looked up at them with arms folded behind his back. “I trust you know of the Sannin, the Great Three who guard the ancient magics of the lands?”

“Yeah,” Izuna drew out the word with curiosity. Every child in their village had grown up on such fairy tales.

“The strongest of the Three was once a patron to this kingdom–”

Madara interrupted without thinking to point out, “This isn’t a kingdom.” 

He did not expect Hashirama to tilt his head back and let out a laugh more bitter than one as cheerful as he should be capable of.

“It was and is, no matter that the people have forgotten their lord. There were…two brothers. As is custom, the duty of ruling these lands was meant to fall to the oldest. Unfortunately illness had laid him low in the prime of his life and the throne fell instead to the younger brother who promised to hold it only until his sibling recovered. However…” Hashirama trailed off with pain in his voice.

“However, instead of recovering the illness spread,” Mito took up her husband’s tale, pausing a moment to spin through the air and remove several perfect slices of bread from the loaf. “All across the kingdom people fell ill, dying faster than messengers could seek help from the younger brother. Though he did what he could there was no stopping what nature itself can never stop.”

Feeling a chill run down his spine, Madara shuddered. “The plague.”

“Yes,” Mito agreed. “The black plague, a nightmare to behold and hellish to contain. When the death toll rose to its heights the younger brother was forced to drive all of the ill together and abandon them lest they continue their spread of death.”

“Really the only way to deal with that,” Madara nodded in sad approval.

“Yet he did not see his own actions that way. Tasked with ruling a kingdom that should never have been his own, cursed to make decisions while his people fell around him, the younger brother took responsibility onto his own shoulders and he himself held the torch when they burned the quarantine zone. It is impossible to say if any inside were still alive. Though he understood the necessity still he could never forgive himself for what he had been forced to do.”

Hashirama shook his head. “A monster he called himself and locked himself within his rooms, emerging only when it was necessary to perform the duties he owed to the kingdom he had sworn to watch over. The elder brother recovered, as some with the plague do, but it did nothing to ease his guilt. Nothing could be done to console him.”

“Sounds whiny,” Izuna muttered. Thankfully it seemed like neither Hashirama nor Mito heard him.

“We worried. That was all. We were worried for the state of his mind after what he had done.” Hashirama looked away. It was hard to tell in a face made of metal filigree but his expression took on a distant quality. “We appealed to the Sannin who watched over our kingdom and beseeched her to intervene. Forgetting, of course, her wicked temper and her utter lack of patience for fools. She revealed that she had indeed already intervened, saving the life of the eldest brother and all within the castle when the plague began, and she did not appreciate having more asked of her. It was never our intention- We could never have predicted- I believe that I will always regret, though not for my own sake.”

He closed his eyes and Mito drifted across the kitchen to hover at his size. She danced out of reach when he held out an arm to embrace her, wary of the flames, and Madara wondered if it was maybe too intimate a moment for him to watch the sadness in both of their gazes to be denied a simple touch. Finally Hashirama went on to finish his story.

“She cursed him out of temper. If he felt so strongly a beast, she said, then a beast he would be. His form changed to that which you witnessed last night and the residents present here in the castle were changed to whatever form suited her whim. Many became furniture, some became animals, a few became clothes or drapery. In a fit of pique for the lord’s self-pity the great Sannin removed us from memory across the Kingdom and hid us away from curious wanderers in the forest, trapping us in time. And so here we have been ever since, alone and lonelier by the year as one by one our numbers dwindle.”

“You’re not _dying_ as furniture?” Madara cried out, shocked.

“Not dying, no. They simply give in. I will show you.”

Hashirama murmured to his wife and she dipped her blades, returning to whatever simple meal she was preparing for breakfast. With a wave he turned and beckoned them to the hallway they had come in from. Madara expected to be taken on a journey but he found Hashirama stopped just outside of the kitchen where he stood on the floor staring up at a massive portrait hung to face inside the kitchens.

The woman portrayed was beautiful, though severe. Her hair was long and caught up on the top of her head in a simple style. Both hands folded across her lap, eyes closed, her shoulders remained straight and stiff in a way that spoke of royal blood.

“My cousin,” Hashirama told them with regret heavy in his words. “Our beloved Touka. She was always the strongest among us and yet even she grew tired of this endless existence, closing her eyes and going to sleep the way so many others have. Now you wouldn’t know them from true furniture.”

“Well…shit.” Madara couldn’t think of anything else to say.

Incredibly, that seemed like the right thing. After a moment of incredulous blinking Hashirama began to laugh that impossible booming laugh until it echoed up and down the hall, filling one small part of this massive castle with happiness once again.

“Very well put, my good man.”

“Just…call me Madara.”

“Indeed. Well, Madara. Izuna. Shall we dine? It’s been a long time since any of us have prepared a meal. You will let us know, I hope, if there is any part you find undesirable and we will hasten to remedy that for you!”

“Right. Sure.”

Despite Hashirama's mood swinging back up as hopped away to check on his wife Madara found himself feeling saddened as he stood out in the hall and stared up at the portrait hanging before him. To know that this was a real person trapped in the oil and the canvas, a woman who despaired of her own state so strongly that she had chosen to fall asleep indefinitely rather than go on and wait for an end, he couldn’t imagine living like that. He was grateful for the hand that slid on to his shoulder and squeezed gently.

“You know he’s not telling us everything,” Izuna said in a low voice and Madara nodded.

“Hearing what we have though…do we really want the full story?”

Izuna shook his head with an expression just as sad as Madara felt. Together they looked up at the painting and Madara wondered if maybe the beast had taken them prisoner not out of cruelty but to be kind to those left awake. He supposed he would be pretty lonely too after so many years watching everyone he knew go quiet and still.

Whatever the case, there was obviously more going on here than he had originally assumed even after discovering the place was run by a horrific man-beast and a talking candelabra. Madara tore his eyes away from the portrait and spun his brother around by force to march them both back in to the kitchen. If someone wanted to tell them more about what was happening he had to admit he was curious enough to listen but until then the best thing to do would be to keep their heads down as much as possible. It had kept them both alive this long. Hopefully it would keep them safe long enough for him to figure out how the hell he was going to get Izuna to a doctor for the cough that started up again as soon as they left the hallway.


	3. Chapter 3

The first few weeks in the castle weren’t very eventful, a surprise considering they were alone with a talking candelabra and a tessen fan that floated along by herself in open defiance of gravity. Mito offered to cook their meals even after Madara pointed out as gently as he could that it was probably better they do it for themselves, them being the two that still had their taste buds and all. She took it with more grace than he said it. That is to say, she ignored him entirely. When they weren’t enjoying what treasures could be created in a fully stocked kitchen Hashirama showed them around the grounds in small spurts.

In the eastern wing he showed them a massive ballroom with a grand piano now wildly out of tune that none of them knew how to play, though Izuna amused them all by plunking at the keys as best he could. Mito twisted and flitted through the air and told them tales of how the court ladies would dance all in their lines together to woo the men who had caught their eyes. On the third floor they stuck their heads in to see what treasures could be found in the other bedrooms of lords and ladies. They walked so many hallways and inspected so many paintings and tapestries it was a wonder their legs didn’t fall off from so much exercise.

Outside they trekked the expansive gardens and found the stables where their mare had been happily housed in a massive stall with as much hay and oats as she could ever hope for. It was only watching her eat that Madara thought to question his own food sources.

“Where does it all come from?” he asked, trailing his fingers in the cool clear water the mare was drinking from. “The food, I mean. You never go in to town and I can’t see crops from any of the windows.”

“It is but another part of the magic,” Hashirama answered. “When the Great Sannin Tsunade placed us outside of time she did not discriminate between people and objects. Everything here is as it was the day we were cursed. We shall never grow older and our food shall never spoil. All that changes are the seasons; a taunt, I think. She has ever had a strange sense of humor.”

Madara hummed and changed the subject quickly.

For all their explanations, however, there were still places he was told never to go in to and questions that went blatantly unanswered when he tried to ask them. Despite telling Izuna the first morning that he really didn’t care for some of the truths behind this place Madara had to admit as the days went by that his curiosity was only rising. What secrets could possibly be hidden out of sight in the wing they had been asked to never enter? Probably the beast, obviously, but could one creature really take up so much space? If he waited until night when no one was awake Madara bet himself that he could at least take a look around and satisfy his own stupid imagination without bothering anyone about it. No one would ever have to know.

And that’s exactly what he planned to do tonight. Waiting until Izuna finally dropped off in his massive bed was almost impossible and Madara was nearly soothed in to sleep himself by the unbelievable comfort of his own mattress. When he finally heard the rasping breath of uneasy sleep Madara threw off his covers and slid both feet in to the carpet slippers Hashirama had found for them in some chest of clothing or another.

The halls were dark but he carried with him one of the candles from their room which he desperately hoped had never been a person. Even knowing there should be no one about he still walked with silent steps, placing his feet carefully every time. It had never occurred to him to ask where Hashirama and his wife slept – or if they even slept at all for that matter – so it wouldn’t do to make noise when he had no way of knowing how far the sounds needed to travel to cause any sort of disturbance. His friend could catch him sneaking around any other part of the castle whenever he liked but Madara would prefer not to be discovered doing the one thing he’d been asked not to do.

Finding his way through the twists and turns was still a challenge despite what must had been miles of travelling up and down these plush carpets for the past few weeks. It took the better part of twenty minutes until finally Madara stood in front of a door covered cleverly with a tapestry, one he only knew was there at all because he once caught Hashirama coming through it with the air of someone sneaking about and hoping not to be seen. The doorknob turned easily, opening to a corridor just as dark as the one he stood in now. When he lifted his candle and slipped inside it didn’t immediately look any different from the places he’d already been.

Until he took a closer look at the portraits hanging on the walls. Even a peasant like him who had never so much as looked a noble in the eye could tell what those were, depictions of the royal line with their crowned heads and their stately faces, the proud way they held their shoulders. Some with smiles and others with a stern countenance, every portrait contained at least one face that was quite obviously related to someone in the next.

Embarrassingly, it still took letting his curiosity run rampant and opening a door to peer inside for Madara to truly understand where he had let himself in to. There were the royal apartments. This wing of the castle had once housed the royal family themselves and he had let himself in like a thief stealing in to another person’s home with no good purpose in mind. If ever he’d felt like a jackass before in his life it certainly did not compare to now as he realized how badly he had accidentally invaded another’s privacy.

As soon as the realization hit he left the room he’d been so nosy about with every intention of sneaking back out and returning to the bed he should never have crawled out of. Likely he would have reached that destination with no further adventures if not for the light of his candle flickering and drawing his eye just a little to the right and that was when he saw it, feet pausing in their tracks.

One of the portraits on the wall had been damaged. Stepping closer Madara saw that the canvas had been rent open in several straight lines by what he would guess had been claws. Most of the portrait had been left intact to show four young men standing together. Three faces were visible, all of them smiling broadly with their wide mouths and sparkling brown eyes, but all three were depicted with differently colored hair. From left to right Madara lifted the candle higher to note dark ashy blond hair, long rich brown, and a strange combination of half black and half white as though one of the men had been dipped in ink. It was the fourth face which bore the damage, completely obscuring the last member of this royal family.

Madara squinted and lowered his candle to inspect what he could of this missing figure. Besides the fact that he seemed to be of equal size to the others and quite obviously dressed in the same royal garb the only clue was a pair of folded hands so pale they might almost be mistaken for white. For a moment he wondered what could possibly be so distressing about this particular person that the beast felt a need to destroy any evidence of their face. When it came to him he felt a heavy leaden weight settle inside him.

“The younger brother,” he whispered to himself. “The king. The…the…”

“Monster?” a voice rumbled from just behind him. Madara shrieked and spun around, brandishing his candle like a heavy club. He had enough time to catch a glimpse of ghostly white before his impromptu weapon bounced harmlessly off of a barrel-like chest and snuffed out.

“Oh shit.”

“You do not belong here, human.” Without further ado Madara found the front of his clothing gathered in a tight fist and he was lifted bodily in to the air. “You have no right to be here; this part of the castle is _private_!”

Legs kicking uselessly at the air beneath him, Madara pushed weakly at the fist in his clothes and shouted, “I can see that! I was leaving!”

That was the wrong thing to say, apparently. He froze as a snarl ripped through the air.

“Do not lie to me! You wish to stare at the beast? Then here – stare to your heart’s content!”

A terrible noise echoed after the snarl as the creature’s other hand screeched against the wall, claws catching in the drapes of a window Madara hadn’t noticed and throwing them open to let moonlight spill inside. By the light of the full moon he was granted a perfect view of bared teeth and eyes filled with rage. Thick horns twisted up and away and tried to draw his eyes upwards.

But Madara saw more than that, saw more than he had when he first laid eyes on this creature, full of panic and the desperate need to protect his sibling. He saw that the features were more human than he had realized. Twisted by magic as they had been, there was still an element of humanity to them behind the elongated teeth and the unkempt hair growing wild. In a wild moment of rare sympathy he wondered how angry he would be to have his internal pain made so external for all the world to see, how broken he would feel to look in the mirror every day and see his worst fears staring back at him.

He wasn’t sure if he was going to say anything or offer any words of comfort but the decision was thankfully taken away from him when a very small voice interrupted the moment, snapping the creature’s jaw shut where they were slowly pulling apart as though to bite off unwanted heads.

“Sensei! Sensei stop it!”

All sound cut off from the beast as he and Madara both looked down to see, of all things, a little toy soldier standing on the ground between two cloven hooves.

“You are supposed to be sleeping,” the creature growled.

“As are you! Put him down sensei, he looks really quite sorry!” 

“He is trespassing!”

“You have a poor temper, sensei.”

Madara watched as the beast holding him was almost comically brought up short by such a blunt declaration, snorting in offense yet slowly lowering his burden an inch or so. “I should think I am allowed to be upset with those trespassing in places they have been told not to enter.”

“You should be kinder all the same!” The little toy soldier propped both hands in his hips and nodded sharply once to cement his statement as immutable fact.

Looking down at him, Madara's eyes couldn’t help but to slide over and stare at the creature’s legs, the first proper look he’d taken. He was reminded of a picture book he once read in the village’s library, a book of fanciful creatures he’d only read thinking maybe he could show it to Izuna, but the things inside had made him put it away again. One creature came back to him now and if he remembered correctly it had been called a satyr, a half-mad abomination with legs of fur and double knees that ended in cloven hooves supporting the torso of a man. In the book the satyr had been cursed with an animal’s muzzle as well. Madara couldn’t help but be grateful he was spared such a sight.

Yet his gratitude was nothing more than a fleeting thought as he slid his eyes back over to the animated toy soldier now lifting one arm to shake a wooden finger at the beast between them, not one sign of fear in his tiny body. Either he was confident that he couldn’t feel pain in this form or he didn’t realize the danger he was in.

“Put him down!”

“You forget who rules here,” the beast said. Even as he spoke, however, he was lowering Madara back to the floor with brows furrowed in disappointment.

“And you forget your manners! Tossing people about in such a way is not polite!”

“Hmph.”

Clothing still caught in a tight grip, Madara made sure to turn only his head as he strained to get a closer look at who this newcomer was that had the audacity to order around a malformed king in his own castle. Once he’d made sure the one he was scolding had listened to him the little toy soldier cocked his head to return Madara's curious gaze. After a moment of consideration he smiled.

“Greetings!”

“Uh…”

“You are not hurt, I hope?”

Madara wondered if he should include his emotional scarring in the assessment. “Not really. I might have to check my underwear but I don’t think anything’s broken so I guess I’m fine.”

He was gratified to have the claws in his shirt release him immediately, the beast flashing him a mildly disgusted look. It took a great deal of strength not to stick out his tongue in response. Having just escaped certain death was not the time to go inciting violence or offering insults of any kind. Not even if it was hilarious to him that a little offhand bathroom humor was what finally got him back on his own two feet.

“You will remove yourself from this place and return to where you belong,” the beast commanded and that was the last straw no matter how Madara told himself to hold his temper.

“I would if you’d let me go home!” he snapped.

To his amazement, instead of anger he was met with large red eyes blinking slowly, a terrible sadness in their depths that he had neither the ability nor the desire to fathom. Without another word the thing turned and walked away with his strangely ponderous loping steps. Even through the carpet the sound of his hooves could never be mistaken for feet; it seemed such an odd thing to notice but once he did Madara hated the little well of sympathy that pooled inside of him as he imagined how much he would grow to hate the sound of even his own footsteps.

A small tutting from down near his ankles drew his attention away from the hulking form retreating in to the shadows and he looked to see the toy soldier shaking his head. Before he could say anything he watched the moonlight glint on shiny brass as Hashirama stepped out of a nearby doorway to lay a hand on the little soldier’s shoulder.

“Well done,” he praised. “Much as it pains me to say, he listens to you more than he does to me.”

“It hurts him to look at you.”

“Yes. I know.” Hashirama gently patted the wooden boy’s head when he winced and began offering apologies for such an insensitive thing to say.

Madara had already come to the conclusion that this new figure must be a child but that solidified his opinion. Only a child or a fool would blurt out something like that without thinking. If not for the ancient mode of speech he would have guessed at someone young right off the bat but it seemed that everyone here really had been locked in time for some years now. As he listened to the two of them trade apologies and forgiveness back and forth he tried to think back to the books he had read in the library but he couldn’t recall a single mention of any plagues in the past century or so. Not in this country at least. Suddenly he regretted not having the time to read further back in history.

“Ah, how rude of me! I did not mean to ignore you my friend!” Hashirama hopped a little closer and waved one hand to brighten the candle at the end.

“Should we get out of here?”

“Of course, of course, allow us to escort you back to your rooms!”

“I know the way myself,” Madara protested but the two of them were already scrambling down the hall. He supposed they must want to make sure he did leave, which was fair.

Only once they had passed through the tapestry to place them outside of the forbidden wing did Hashirama speak again. “Has this young scallywag introduced himself to you yet? No? May I have the pleasure of introducing Kagami! I’m afraid you might not see much of him, he spends most days keeping my- keeping our lord company.”

“Sensei often falls victim to loneliness even if he doesn’t say so out loud,” Kagami piped up. He smiled when Madara looked at him, painted mouth shifting across his wooden face.

“Does he ever come out of his rooms?”

“He used to on occasion. At night when he couldn’t sleep he liked to wander the gardens.”

Madara sidestepped a table just before crashing in to it, saving the priceless vase perched on top, and asked, “What, and now he’s an even bigger shut in than before? What changed?”

“Ever since you and your brother arrived he hasn’t come out even once.” Kagami saw the widening of his eyes and hurried to assure him. “It isn’t that he’s afraid or uncomfortable, I’m certain! Rather I believe it is in an effort to allow the two of you to feel at ease. He wishes for you to be happy here.”

“So that we’ll stay,” Madara guessed and Kagami nodded.

“Yes. He hopes that you will stay. It was his thought that having someone new to keep us all company may prevent any more from falling in to the deep sleep from which none have reawakened.”

“Hn. I don’t know why he’s worried about me leaving. He was the one that bound me here with some weird magic. Izuna, on the other hand, I think he would leave if I could.” Madara lifted his gaze ahead and both of his companions fell silent as he worried quietly to himself.

In the weeks since he and his brother had come here they’d both grown quite fond of Hashirama and Mito, caring individuals who flourished under the duty of guests to care for, but as time went on Izuna had begun spending more and more time shut away in their room much like the beast himself. There was only so long they could pass off his coughing as a simple cold. Madara knew he was bound here and as much as it pained him he knew there was nothing he could say that would make Izuna leave knowing he could never follow.

Peeking down at Hashirama's hopping form he held in a sigh. Eventually they would need to say something; the treatment Izuna had picked up from the doctor would run out soon, but he found he was reluctant to see the expression on Hashirama's face when he revealed the truth. He saw the dumb talking candle as something of a friend now and even though there was nothing Hashirama could do he was bound to feel guilt over Izuna’s condition. He was a gentle soul like that.

“Here we are!”

Madara snapped back out of his thoughts to see that they had indeed arrived outside of the bedroom he shared with his brother. “Right. Yeah. Thanks for walking with me. I still knew the way by myself, though.”

“It was wonderful to meet you!” Kagami hurried over to crawl up the leg of his pants and dangle off his fingers in an approximation of a handshake. “I hope we meet again!”

“Tell your _lord_ to come out of hiding then,” Madara replied, holding up his hand to smile bemusedly at the little soldier.

It took several minutes for two such friendly people to get through their goodbyes and goodnights but Madara did make it back in to his bed while the moon was still high in the sky, plenty of time left before the sun was due to rise again. Before he slipped under the covers he tiptoed across to check in on Izuna and brush the hair back from that beloved face. He’d been coughing in his sleep, evidenced by the upset blankets and the way he was twisted on his side in unconscious search of comfort, so Madara tucked him back in as tight as possible and then slipped away.

Unlike most nights he failed to fall asleep right away. Despite the comfort his mattress provided his mind was still very much awake and whirring along with thoughts of the creature he had faced and survived less than an hour before. In all the time since he’d arrived it hadn’t struck him as odd until now that no one ever used the creature’s name. For the most part they avoided speaking about him all together. Madara wondered if that was for him or if they were ever allowed in to the royal apartments to visit their lord. They must be if Hashirama had been able to sneak up on them and congratulate Kagami on calming the beast at the right moment. Neither had seemed all that surprised to see him there.

With so many thoughts in his head it took well over another hour for Madara to fall asleep and he woke to the sound of Izuna’s retching cough, scrambling out of his blankets to run for the medicine hidden away in the dresser they kept their meager belongings in. Izuna took his tonic gratefully and settled back against the pillows to cough some more, flushed and feverish. Madara stroked his hair gently.

“You need a doctor,” he whispered.

“Good luck finding one here,” his brother croaked, trying for a carefree smirk but ruining the effort with a terrible spasm.

“See if I don’t go kicking every chair and chest of drawers until I wake one up.” Madara was happy to have at least earned himself a smile but he insisted the younger man stay in bed and promised to bring some food up soon as had become their habit.

He was out the door and heading for the kitchens immediately without a single thought given to telling Izuna about his adventure the night before. As their supply of medicine dwindled he had taken to keeping his most surprising adventures and discoveries to himself to prevent Izuna from getting worked up as often as possible. The less time he spent throwing temper tantrums the less fits he kicked off and the less Madara felt like he might be the worst big brother in history.

Like most mornings he found Hashirama and his wife working away in the kitchen to prepare a massive breakfast neither he nor Izuna would ever be able to finish. It was like this every day. Hashirama delighted in cooking more than necessary, insisting that they were used to serving many more people, and it wasn’t like they would ever run out of food when the store replenished themselves every night at the passing of the witching hour. Madara privately suspected the timing of that to be a joke from the one who cast this magic but he’d never bothered to voice his suspicions.

“Your brother has decided to lie abed again, I presume?” Mito asked, one of her painted eyebrows lifting on the parchment that bore her face. Madara did his best not to take offense.

“I’ll bring something up to him after I eat.”

“Don’t forget to bring your dishes back!” Surprisingly, that was not Hashirama's voice. When Madara looked down he found Kagami struggling up on to the countertop. “Good morrow! I wished to join you for breakfast and sensei said that it was good for me to seek other company too!”

He was saved the trouble of coming up with anything to say as Hashirama and Mito immediately began fussing over the small thing, making up a place for him to sit even though they all knew very well he couldn’t eat. Kagami preened under all the attention. It was more than obvious how little time he spent away from the beast’s side; Madara was uncomfortably reminded of the way Izuna clung to him in the months after it started becoming obvious their parents were never returning.

“You could have company any time you wanted if you just came out of hiding,” he heard himself saying gruffly.

“Oh but I simply couldn’t leave sensei all alone!”

“So bring him too,” Madara growled. “It’s his damn castle, apparently. Far be it from me to stop him from walking around his own house or whatever.” He reached out to jerk his breakfast plate closer and shoveled a large bite in to his mouth, hoping that would be the end of the discussion.

“Truly? You wouldn’t mind?” Kagami leaned forward to look up at him like he’d hung the stars. It was incredibly uncomfortable.

Deliberately not looking at the small boy Madara shrugged and pushed another bite in to his mouth, speaking around the food. “I mean what’s he gonna do, eat me? Tell him he can come out of hiding as long as he’s not carrying any hot sauce.”

It took a great deal of effort to ignore the way both Kagami and Hashirama exploded with overenthusiastic gratitude for something he shouldn’t have needed to say in the first place. Like he’d pointed out, this castle belonged to that beast so if anyone was worried about being accommodating it should have been him and Izuna who had to stay in their rooms. Circumstances of their arrival aside, they were the ones who didn’t belong here, after all.

Escaping from so many heartfelt thanks was a great relief and Madara felt a lot more comfortable slipping back in to their bedroom with a covered tray containing more food than he knew his brother would be able to eat. Either he was going to have to start throwing it out the window or all the extra scraps he was eating to cover the evidence were going to start showing up on his waistline soon. The last thing he needed was to get fat. Some small part of him was still holding on to the hope that someday they might find a way out of this and finding a new job to replace the one he had surely lost by now would be much harder if he were too out of shape to do any hard labor.

“I smell food,” Izuna’s voice called from under the blankets and Madara closed to door with a smile.

“Too bad none of it’s for you,” he teased. As predicted, Izuna’s face appeared with an offended scowl and the other man laboriously pulled himself up in to a sitting position where he could reach out with two grabby hands.

“Gimme!”

Madara made sure to harrumph and mourn the lack of his brother’s manners as he deposited the tray, doing his best to give the impression that he would starve without the contents. Izuna wasn’t fooled.

“How are you feeling this morning?” he asked instead, slumping down on the foot of the bed.

“Fine.” Izuna carefully straightened his spine. “Maybe I’m a little cold.”

In an instant Madara was back on his feet and fetching a blanket to throw over his brother’s shoulders. “Take it easy, alright?”

“Right. Because I’ve been doing anything _but_ taking it easy lately.” The rolling of his eyes wasn’t necessary but Izuna had always been a little dramatic even when it wasn’t called for. Madara let it slide without comment for once.

While the other ate he tucked the blankets in a little more securely and fell back across the foot of the bed once more, staring up at the beautifully painted ceiling and wondering if he was being optimistic about his own chances of getting out of here someday. He’d made a promise; he had magically bound himself to this place where time didn’t really exist. No matter how he kept his hopes up he might someday be the only living creature here besides the beast with all his friends giving in to the deep sleep and becoming permanent furniture.

And that wasn’t a life he could condemn his brother to.

Knowing how little medicine there was left in the back of the dresser they shared, Madara held in a sigh, not wanting to alert Izuna to where his thoughts had turned for the hundredth time. When it did run out they both knew what he had to do and neither of them liked it. He could already foresee how much of a fight it would be but he didn’t care. One way or another he would have to convince Izuna to leave him here and risk forgetting about him. Losing his brother to a better quality of life would always be a better option than sitting back and watching the younger man die in front of him.


	4. Chapter 4

Living outside of time was strange. Intellectually Madara knew that when he left the village it had been the rainy season and there was no reason to expect snow for several more months, later than the year before if the almanac was to be believed. Knowing that, it should have felt so much more odd to stand in the open doorway of the castle and stare out across snow covered grounds that looked closer to the heart of winter than the middle of autumn. He wondered for a moment if being bound to this place made him just a little more connected to the magic and therefore a little less surprised by things but cast that idea away rather quickly. That wasn’t what he wanted to dwell on today.

He’d gotten himself all nicely dressed in a pair of sturdy boots Hashirama dug up for him and one of the thick coats hanging in the room he shared with Izuna. The plan had been to walk around the edge of the grounds and see how far his binding would allow him to stray but now that he was here he felt almost exhausted just thinking about the effort.

Considering the lack of moving time Madara couldn’t be sure how long he’d been standing there in indecision when movement caught his eye and he turned his head to watch the beast himself come around the corner. Despite telling Kagami just a few days before that he didn’t mind if the damn thing roamed his own castle the meeting was still so unexpected Madara froze and could do nothing but stare until he was spotted in return, the creature pausing between one long step and the next. He met glowing red eyes and, incredibly, he first thought was ‘he looks sad’.

Whatever the beast’s thoughts were it seemed pretty obvious they had nothing to do with whether or not Madara looked sad. More than anything he looked like he was contemplating which spire to climb so he could throw himself off of it, though that might have been an effect of the deep brows his twisted face was cursed with, something Madara hoped had not been there when his face had been human – ostensibly. His mane of white hair shifted around him as it was pulled by the gentle wind and the slight movement made it a little easier to distinguish his shape from the equally white snow behind him. It was possible that his coloring was an effect of the curse. Considering what Madara had seen in that portrait, though, he would guess not.

“Finally came out of hiding?” he called, partly to break the silence and partly because he just didn’t know when to keep his mouth shut sometimes. He wasn’t surprised to see the creature frown.

“If my efforts towards making you more comfortable are so unappreciated I would be more than glad to forego them in the future.”

“Oh don’t be a grumpy idiot now,” Madara snapped. “You did enough of that the last two times I saw you. I think we both know at this point that you’re not going to eat my fingers for an afternoon snack so stop pretending.”

The creature snorted, blowing out a puff of steam in the chilly air around them. He stomped one of his hooves without really seeming to notice and settled in to a more natural stance than staying paused between steps had left him in. Madara considered him for a moment and then turned away to look around them with deliberate nonchalance. With his gaze focused a little closer to himself than the far distance he could see tracks his eyes must have passed over before, evidence that his present company had been out here for quite some time with the way they started in one direction and seemed to loop all the way around the building to where the beast was now coming from the opposite side.

“Been out here for a while huh?”

“An old habit from when I first began testing the boundaries of my imprisonment.”

Madara blinked. He really hadn’t expected them both to be out here doing the same thing. Without thinking about it he asked, “How far can we go?”

Even more surprisingly, he got an answer.

“To the west our borders reach just beyond the gardens. Our northern wall marks the edge in that direction. To the south we are granted some two miles of forest trails behind the stables and to the east we may alight on the shore beyond the lake but no farther.” The creature shook his head. “You will know you have reached the edge when you find yourself turning back against your own will.”

“Oh. I kind of thought it would be painful or something. Like a shock or a burn maybe.” Madara fought the urge to scratch at the back of his head awkwardly, feeling a little stupid for automatically assuming that.

“We suffer enough by being here,” was the only answer he got.

Feeling even more awkward now, Madara shifted his weight and half turned back towards the inside of the castle. “Right. I guess I don’t really need to go explore for myself now then. Waste of time. Look, like I said to the others, this is your home. So if you want to walk around or something don’t worry about bothering my brother and me. You don’t even have to talk to us or anything if you don’t want to.”

“That is unexpectedly kind of you.”

“Not really. Its common manners. I do understand those, you know. Except right now I’m going to ignore manners and go back inside so I’ll see you around maybe…uh…” Madara faltered when he realized he was about to call the thing ‘Beast’ as an actual title, something that might really have gotten him eaten.

It took a moment but the creature eventually seemed to realize the cause of his hesitation and narrowed red eyes in to a glare. “My _name_ is Tobirama.”

Unable to decide how he wanted to deal with the revelation of knowing the monster’s name, Madara stumbled over a few half sentences which might have been strung together as a goodbye of some sort and fled back indoors. He hurried all the way up to the room where he was grateful to find Izuna missing. Today being a rare day when he felt well enough to move about on his own, Izuna had gone down to eat breakfast in the kitchen for once and actually socialize with their animated hosts. Madara was grateful not to be questioned as he removed all of his unused winter wear and proceeded to stomp circles around the beautiful carpet until his heart stopped racing inside of his chest.

He had spoken to his own jailor. Worse than that he hadn’t actually hated speaking to the thing. Or Tobirama, as was apparently the name he should have been using. Having a name for the twisted face did strange things to his mind and Madara realized that he was immediately thinking of Tobirama as more human just for being able to stop referring to him as ‘the beast’ or ‘the creature’. With a name instead of a scary title he no longer had over-exaggerated images come to mind of foot long teeth or hands so big they could crush his entire head in one fist. The reality of Tobirama was that he was half of a twisted monster, yes, but that the other half of him remained pathetically and painfully human. And Madara wasn’t sure what to do with that.

As had become his first instinct lately, he thought about going to talk to Hashirama about it. Surely one who had been here since before this whole mess started would have a few helpful insights. Then he thought the better of it and considered going over things with Izuna instead. His brother knew him better than anyone in the world, after all, and it might have been more helpful to talk to someone who would understand his reactions to everything. He was still undecided when he stepped out of the room and nearly leapt out of his skin at the squeaky panicked voice under his feet.

“Do not step upon me!” When he was able to see through the fright Madara looked down to find little Kagami scrambling out from underneath the path of his footsteps.

“What are you doing?” he demanded. “I almost squashed you like a bug!”

“I am so very sorry!”

Realizing he was still holding one foot up in the air, Madara set it down out of the way and shook his head. “You should be a little more careful about where you walk. He looks harmless but I’m pretty sure Hashirama would light me on fire in my sleep if I actually hurt you in any way.”

“He might weep for a very long time but I am certain Hashirama could never hurt you. The one you would really have to look out for is sensei!” Seeing him fall in to a more natural stance, Kagami hurried over and began scaling the seam on his pant leg, using folds as handholds until he was able to swing over and climb up to sit on Madara's shoulder uninvited.

“Comfortable?” Madara asked him dryly.

Kagami beamed. “Yes! Sensei is so tall I often get dizzy riding upon his heights. It is pleasing to see the Uchiha line has kept its traditional stature!”

“You know, you’re a kid and you still talk fancier than I do. I can’t decide if it’s just years of exposure without aging or if kids from your time really were just overly educated. Wait. In all the time I’ve been here I don’t think either of us has ever mentioned our last name. How did you know we’re Uchiha?” It was a legitimate question he thought. There had been a couple of occasions when they maybe should have given their family name to be polite but Madara had held back in the beginning because he didn’t want to be followed if he somehow escaped and then later there had been no reason to think about it anymore.

So it was weird to him that Kagami would know this without being told and he thought he was well within his rights to question it. He was quite surprised to see the little soldier looking back at him as though it was odd to have his knowledge questioned.

“How could I not recognize another of the Uchiha family? The hair alone is distinctive enough but the jaw and the nose too, it is as like as looking in a mirror!”

“You’re…an Uchiha?”

“Of course!”

“There are more of us!?”

Kagami blinked. “Are there none left?” he asked in a quiet voice.

“Not that I know of. Our parents never mentioned having any other relatives anywhere. We used to have three other siblings but none of them lived much past puberty. As far as I know it’s just us. And…you?” Madara tried to wrap his head around how long the family tree would have to be to connect him and the little boy on his shoulder who was somehow both younger and older than himself.

“There used to be dozens of Uchiha in this city. Before the sickness came our family was one of the most prominent, sworn to serve the royal line, and even I was already being groomed to stay away from potential brides who might not be good enough to marry in to our bloodline. When the Sannin Tsunade removed us from memory there would have been more than a dozen Uchiha left in the city. I thought they would have had children.” He hung his wooden head in sorrow and Madara looked away.

He’d known that the people inside the castle were stopped in time and that they had been watching each other fall in to permanent slumber one by one for years but it had never occurred to him that they might have had ties with people outside the magic as well, that they would have been forced to come to terms with the inevitable death of their missing loved ones. In a way he could almost relate.

“It’s not actually a city anymore,” he corrected, not sure how to keep the subject from getting any darker. “Where we live it’s just a village, barely even that really.”

“The peoples must have left when they could no longer remember what kept them there.” Kagami shifted and tugged at his own tin soldier hat thoughtfully.

“Hold on…”

When his face suddenly dropped the boy on his shoulder went as tense as a boy made of metal could. “What is it? Have I done wrong?”

“No I just…is that what happened to the other brothers?” He almost regretted his words when Kagami’s face fell.

“The two other royal brothers? Yes, that is what happened to them.” The boy sighed despondently. “Itama-sama and Kawarama-sama. Unfortunately they were both away from home when the magic was cast. As the youngest brothers they were expected to join the cavalry and they happened to be leading an official inspection of each border unit when the Great Sannin removed us from time; we can only assume they lived out the rest of their lives never knowing the family they were missing.”

“At least they had each other?” Madara tried.

“Oh yes! That is a very kind way to look at it! Thank you, cousin!”

That brought him up short again. Kagami shifted around and began to braid three tiny strands of his hair together while Madara worked his way through being addressed as cousin when he knew for sure the relationship would be wildly more complicated than that. After a few seconds he decided it wasn’t worth hashing out and finally changed the subject entirely.

“Did you need something? Or were you just wandering around the upper halls looking for something to do?”

“Indeed! I came to ask if you would please speak with my sensei,” Kagami said. “He has been most reluctant to come out of his rooms even after you said you didn’t mind and I was hoping you might tell him so again.”

Madara gave him a dubious look. He’d already said his piece; it wasn’t up to him to make sure the man of the house knew he was allowed to walk around in his own home. Especially not if that man was an honest to god King. Besides that, he had only just seen the creature that morning and had his entire world turned upside down just by learning its name so he wasn’t exactly in a big hurry to go and buddy up for a good conversation at the moment.

Spinning on his heel, Madara cupped the little toy on his shoulder so he wouldn’t fall off and carried both of them back in to his bedroom, crossing over to flop down on the bench where they could both see through the window. As he’d suspected, the view from here looked out over the gardens where Tobirama had managed to wander around and was currently pacing his way between rows of hedges. Kagami left off his braiding and clambered down Madara's arm to press both hands against the cold pane. He looked down at his sensei with painted lips turned down in a sad expression.

“I just saw him,” Madara explained. “I was going to figure out how big this gilded cage really is but I ran in to him at the entrance and he told me how far we can go in every direction. Then I kind of insulted him and left.”

“You insulted him?”

“Well I didn’t mean to! Do you know that no one hads ever bothered to mention his name until now? I didn’t know what to call him and I, er, I almost called him ‘beast’ right to his face.” He screwed up his face when Kagami turned to look at him, shocked. “I know! I know!”

“That must have truly hurt sensei’s feelings.”

Casting his gaze out the window at the forlorn figure wandering through the snow alone, Madara grunted. “Suppose I’ll have to make it up to him or whatever. That’s his whole thing right? The curse? Hashirama said that he saw himself as a monster for what he did during the plague so the witch lady cursed him to look like one. I wouldn’t want to be reminded of that either.”

“If only sensei would stop thinking that way things could go back to how they were,” Kagami said.

Still watching the slow steps and the way the wind pulled carelessly at Tobirama’s wild hair, it took a few seconds for Madara's brain to catch up with that. “What does that mean?”

“That is how sensei could end the curse if only he believed what we all know. The Lady Tsunade told him that if he could look in to a mirror and see himself as a human then all would be as it should. I think that is why he hides himself away. Not because he cannot look at himself but because he cannot look in to the eyes of everyone he believes he has let down by extending this shadow of a life. And the more years pass the more he believes he was right all along, that he has always been a monster.” Kagami let his words trail away in time with his stiff fingers sliding down the pane of glass and Madara finally realized why the odd story-telling cadence of the boy’s speech felt so out of place.

“You’re still trying to get me to go talk to him, aren’t you?”

“Sensei is lonely!” Kagami wailed, turning to fall against his arm and wrap around it with all four limbs. “It has been years since he met anyone new, I beg of you to spend a little time in his presence and help him to see that he is not a monster no matter what face he wears!”

Already frowning, Madara let the crease between his brows deepen a little. “Manipulation is not your strong suit, tiny soldier boy.”

“Does that mean that you will do it?”

“Shut up.”

Izuna returned shortly after that and their conversation turned to other things, mostly introducing his brother to the idea that they were somehow very distantly related to the only child left in the castle. In the end all three of them collectively decided that addressing each other as cousins was probably the easiest way to go.

For a few days after Madara was able to distract Kagami away from the subject whenever it came up, not quite ready to do as he knew he eventually would. His hesitance wasn’t so much out of any desire to stay farther away from his captor but rather it was born out of his utter lack of any idea what to say. How was he meant to convince Tobirama that he was still human inside when Madara himself saw little of that left in him? Of the few times he’d met the other he had seen only anger and a deep abiding sadness. Human qualities for sure but were they enough? Was that all there was to him?

At a certain point he couldn’t avoid it anymore – and Kagami realized he was being put off, which ended in him moping adorably in a corner for an hour, leaving Madara to explain to the others what he had agreed to do. He left the room to seek out the lord of the castle more to escape Hashirama's fire-hazard attempts of an enthusiastic hug than anything else. The dumb candle seemed way too happy about the prospect of everyone getting along together.

Saying he would speak with the lord of the castle and actually doing so were two different things, however, and it proved a little harder to track his quarry down when he didn’t really have any idea where to look. According to Kagami there was no one in the royal apartments. He didn’t really want to go tramping around in the snow but that was really his only other idea. With great reluctance he wandered down to the front hall, thinking that perhaps he might be able to spot the beast from the door again and save himself the trouble of going all the way upstairs to dress in warmer clothes. To his great luck both tasks were unnecessary.

Both him and his host stood rigid with surprise when they almost collided going around a corner. They stood blinking at each other for several seconds before Tobirama snorted and moved to step around him, jolting Madara in to action.

“I was just looking for you,” he said, somehow managing a casual tone.

“Were you?” Tobirama lifted both of his heavy brows and Madara fought the urge to scowl defensively.

“Look, if we’re going to spend an unknown number of years locked together in the same castle then maybe we should get to know each other or something. You can’t hide from me forever. That sounds boring.”

He lifted an eyebrow of his own as if to challenge the half-human standing more than a full foot above him and Tobirama stared back with narrowed eyes, clearly doubting his intentions but not willing to call him out just yet. Quite likely he had also been a victim of Kagami’s pep talks trying to force them to socialize with each other but Madara was willing to bet that Tobirama was too lonely to pass up the opportunity to make a new friend. And also probably too proud to admit that.

“If you think that is best,” Tobirama answered eventually. His words sounded awkward, chewed over and halting, like he wasn’t sure of them but had nothing else to say.

“Right, because you’re obvious super worried about what I think.”

The frown lines on Tobirama’s face deepened with frustration. “Do not look for insult where none was meant. I was agreeing with your proposal.”

“Alright, okay, I can play nice. Go on then.”

“Go-?” To his amusement, Tobirama stared at him with only more frustration. “You were the one who asked me to converse. Why should I be the one who must ‘go on then’?”

“You’re royalty; aren’t you royal types trained in how to socialize and stuff?” Madara asked.

“I do hope you’ll forgive me if my social skills are a bit out of practice after so long without meeting anyone new. One does tend to let one’s propriety slip when the only decent conversationalist around is my own brother. And his wife, of course, but unfortunately Mito and I have not been on good terms for the past decade or thereabouts.” Tobirama wrinkled his nose, the face of a man remembering a wrong he’d committed but wasn’t ready to apologize for.

Sensing a good story behind that, Madara was about to ask for a retelling of whatever Tobirama had done to insult Mito a decade or so ago. Clearly it had nothing to do with their general situation since that had happened more than several decades ago as far as he could tell. Before he could ask, however, the rest of that little speech caught up with his brain and Madara nearly lost his jaw as it fell open.

“Wait. Your brother. Hashirama is your _brother_!?”

“Yes.”

Reeling back, Madara gripped both sides of his head and stared in to the middle distance. “My whole life is a lie. Oh my god he’s the elder brother in the story. Hashirama caught the plague and then a magic lady saved him but she didn’t save anyone else and you had to – oh damn. Wow.”

Tobirama watched judgmentally but thankfully in silence as Madara went through all the general stages of a mental breakdown. He’d known the story since day one, accepted all of it as true in the meantime, but the story Hashirama and Mito told him just hadn’t felt real until he realized he’d been staring all the characters of it in the face this whole time. Hashirama was the eldest brother, the one who was meant to be king, who had apparently not falling in to the long sleep. And in front of him was Tobirama, doomed to watch his older sibling live out life as an animated candelabra because of mistakes he had made during a reign that was never supposed to be his in the first place.

“Fire and flame,” Madara swore under his breath. “Your life sucks.” He said it without thinking, without aim, so the bark of laughter that sprang out of his companion nearly startled him right out of his skin.

“If you wish to put it in such crass terms, yes.”

“Shit, no, I didn’t mean to bring anything up! Crap. See this is why I don’t talk to anyone either!” If his trousers had pockets Madara would have shoved his hands down deep and hiked up his shoulders uncomfortably. Without pockets he could only fold his arms and pout.

Above him, Tobirama cocked his head to one side with a shadow of what might be translated in to a smile.

“Perhaps the two of us might find some common ground after all,” he said.

“Maybe. Come on, let me drag you back to the kitchen so Hashirama can get all the weepy gratitude out of his system and then we can go sit down somewhere and tell each other our favorite colors or something." Madara beckoned with one hand and was gratified when Tobirama followed placidly, not a hint of kingly pride balking at being told what to do. That was a good sign.

Keeping stride with Tobirama’s massive legs turned out easier said than done and Madara had to power walk for a couple of hallways until his companion rather shamefacedly shortened his steps. As they neared the kitchens he looked down with a hesitant expression.

“You do not actually expect us to make such simplistic conversation as trading favorite colors, do you?”

“If that’s what it takes to make you less grumpy,” Madara declared. “How else am I supposed to get to know you if we don’t ask questions or something?”

“Pray think of something a little more interesting.”

Without thinking Madara rolled his eyes and stuck out his tongue, a response he usually reserved for Izuna or Hashirama, the people he actually felt comfortable joking around with knowing he wouldn’t insult them. Then since he couldn’t snap his tongue back in to his face without making himself look even more foolish he did his best to play it off like he was completely comfortable teasing a seven foot cursed king who trapped him here with a magically binding vow. Incredibly, he did not get stomped to death by two sharp hooves.

Somehow his casual attitude seemed to break a little more of the tension between them and as he reached for the door to go face Hashirama together Madara almost smiled, thinking to himself that maybe being locked in a castle with a mythical creature wasn’t quite as terrible as it sounded.


	5. Chapter 5

“You did not!”

“It was a common pastime when I was young, is it not so anymore? In fact I believe I was the only child in my age group who did not enjoy rolling a hoop with a stick. However, that was mostly due to the fact that I much preferred to sequester myself in the library reading books far above my expected level.” Tobirama’s chest puffed out ever so slightly with pride and Madara laughed again.

“So all the other kids were boring losers playing with sticks and a hoop but you were a nerd. Awesome.” Anticipating the frown of disapproval, Madara hustled a few steps ahead and pretended to inspect an admittedly beautiful vase on a random table, hiding his laughter in admiration for the intricate designs.

Once they finally got past the awkwardness of actually speaking after ignoring each other for several weeks Madara was pleasantly surprised to find an amusing companion in Tobirama. Their first true bonding exercise was avoiding Hashirama together and working as a team to distract and evade, neither wanting to stay and listen to the idiot sobbing melted wax for hours at a time. It took a while to convince Izuna he wasn’t crazy for making friends with the one that trapped them here but after a few days Madara could safely say that he did not regret their burgeoning new friendship. Tobirama was interesting.

“Forgive me if this offends but I am unaware of the current educational standards. Do you or your brother know how to read?”

“We can, yeah. Izuna would rather do other things, although a lot of the time he doesn’t have much choice. There’s not much else to do when you’re lying in bed all day except maybe knit. I like to read though. I was one of the library’s only patrons in our village.” Now it was his turn to fluff up like a peacock. A lot of the villagers never bothered with any education besides caring for their land. Some had no one to teach them, some had no interest. Madara considered himself and his brother lucky that their parents had deigned to pass on a little education to their children. The story had been that the skill was passed down through their family because they were descended from noble stock, something he’d never believed until Kagami oh so casually revealed that it was actually true.

“Shall we visit the library?” Tobirama asked.

“You have a library? Hashirama took me on so many tours around this mountain of a place and not once did I see a library!”

The other shook his head. “My brother was ever bored by reading. His pursuits were more of the physical realm. We were a well-balanced pair in our day, he and I.” His voice took on a melancholy tinge as he trailed off and Madara hopped on the chance to distract. Today was not a day he wanted either of them to start moping.

“Right then, show the way!”

His mock-cheer seemed to draw Tobirama out of whatever cloud he’d been about to shroud himself in and the atmosphere between them remained fairly mellow, the path of their aimless wandering turned aside with purpose to head for the southern wing. When he first explored the castle with Hashirama Madara remembered thinking the southern wing was oddly smaller than the others but now he realized it wasn’t. They had just spent less time exploring those parts because Hashirama didn’t care for them, the sneaky idiot.

Getting anywhere took forever here since the entire building was roughly the size of a village center at its base and several stories tall so the two of them made idle conversation about what games they both played as children to see if there was any commonalities between the changing generations. As it turned out there were a few things they could both recall doing and, ironically enough, they were all the games they’d had to be forced to play along with like hopscotch and spinning tops.

“Ah, here we are,” Tobirama interrupted himself in the middle of a sentence to indicate a set of massive wooden doors that had once been painted a very soft green, though the paint had faded and peeled with no one taking the time to rejuvenate it over the years. They were also several times taller than either of them.

“How in the hell are we supposed to get in there?” Madara demanded. “Either one of those doors probably weighs more than I can move without some kind of pulley system!”

“Yes, very likely, but that is why this is here.”

With that Tobirama reached over and took hold of a secondary handle in the left door that had been cleverly hidden by the old paint job, even move indistinguishable with so much peeling paint drawing the eye everywhere else. As casually as if he opened secret portals all the time Tobirama pulled open a smaller door out of the massive one and turned back to Madara with a smirk that said he knew very well he’d just blown the human’s mind.

Madara had every intention of snapping back with some kind of sassy retort but the moment he stepped through the door his mind was empty of almost everything but awe. He thought back to the library in his village, how he’d always been so proud of himself for reading almost half of the books, and could not help the hysterical bubble of laughter that escaped for believing himself well-read. Every book he’d ever consumed in his life would not have filled a single shelf. The room itself was massive, the number of shelves lining each wall mind-boggling, and the number of trees it would have taken to fill so many books would probably have outnumbered the very forest this castle was surrounded by. For a wild moment he felt somehow unqualified to be in here.

“That is…a lot of books.”

“And that is a respectable understatement.”

“Shut up! This is amazing!” Madara stood close to the entrance for another minute just to admire the sight of so much human knowledge all in one place.

Then he turned and sprinted for the closest spine he could get his hands on, tracing the high quality leather and greedily admiring the gold embossed lettering decorating several of them in a row. Dust coated everything in thick layers but underneath the books were thick and sturdy looking with no signs of deterioration or damp. Just the thought of how much knowledge might be contained within this one room was enough to stagger him, almost enough to make him salivate, so without making himself wait any longer he reached up to pull the closest book out and admire the front.

“An interesting choice to start with,” Tobirama noted, stepping up behind him.

“Why, what is it?”

“That is a genealogy register; this particular section is a record of my family history going back more generations that I’m sure anyone has cared about for at least half of those generations. What you have there is a volume dating somewhat near to one hundred years before my birth.”

Madara lifted one eyebrow and looked down at the book in his hands with disappointment. “Oh. Boring. I’ll look at something else then. Where does the family photo album section end?”

He followed Tobirama’s clawed finger to where it pointed at the far wall and had to shake his head first because that was way too many books just to keep track of how many people had been part of one family. Then he hurried across the dusty maw of the open floor to snatch the first book that drew his eye. Once upon a time the leather had been dyed a gorgeous emerald green. From the condition of the page edges it looked as though this tome had been ancient even before it was stopped in time, practically ready to crumble between his fingers. As carefully as possible and with gentle movements Madara opened the book to a random page.

Then frowned.

“What the hell language is this?” he asked.

“The same language we are speaking now,” Tobirama replied with slight confusion. “Perhaps a bit more formal but it is the same language. Is there a problem?”

“No way is this the same, I’ve never even heard some of these words before. Thouest? Hitherto fore? Seemest thine? What kind of witchcraft spell book did I just pick up?” Turning the book side to side and flipping it around did nothing to make the sentences any clearer.

“I assure you that the recipes therein are not witchcraft.”

Madara looked up at his companion with a frown and then back down at the book, squinting. “These are recipes? I honestly cannot follow a single sentence. Why are all the letters so stupidly curly?”

“That is the way of scribes, I suppose.” Tobirama offered a disinterested shrug.

Disappointed again, Madara snapped the book shut and very carefully slid it back in to place. He stepped back and craned his neck to look way up to where a balcony had been built around the perimeter of the room, breaking up the wall close to where the second story would begin. So many books and they were all so stupidly fancy he couldn’t read any of them? That hurt.

“Are there any books that have anything interesting to say?” he grumbled.

“Plenty of them, yes.”

“Hmph. Suppose it doesn’t matter anyway if I can’t bloody decipher them. I shouldn’t have to learn half another language just to read a few books!”

Tobirama, the bastard, was laughing at him. He could tell. No smile appeared but there was a certain tilt to his head that Madara was used to seeing on the villagers that always thought themselves better than him, though oddly enough Tobirama didn’t strike him as quite that stuck up despite his royal upbringing. Either he was naturally blessed with a little humility or the years alone had smothered his pride. Whatever the case he was still laughing.

Just to be clear on how little he appreciated that Madara made sure to shove his nose so far in the air he almost couldn’t see where he was going as he stormed away from the library he’d thought he might be able to lose himself in. He had no illusions about his own skill, he would never pretend to call himself a scholar or a true intellectual of any kind, but he did enjoy the hours he was able to sink in to stories of the past and just thinking of how much rich history there must be here burned him. To be so close to so many treasures and unable to appreciate them, it was torture.

“If words have failed you then would perhaps you would like to see the armory instead?”

“What?” Madara's head jerked down and he stopped in his tracks. “You have an armory? More stuff Hashirama did not mention!”

“It’s a bit of a walk but yes but considering the location I am not surprised my brother was unable to show you this as well. Allow me to escort you.”

This time Madara hustled to match Tobirama’s long strides a little better, twice as excited. “My favorite books to read were always the history books on war. There was the one about a battle that took place only a few miles from our village; when I first read it I was still pretty young and I ditched chores for the day to hike out and play soldier in the field I thought the book was talking about.”

“Pray tell me you wore a pot for a helmet?” Tobirama teased.

After sticking out his tongue Madara had to sheepishly admit, “I may have brought along an apple basket to wear. And a broomstick to use as a sword because I knew a stick from the forest would break if I hit anything with it.”

“How precious. When I was learning swordsmanship my father had crafted for me a wooden sword but I insisted upon carrying a genuine shield.” His heavy nose wrinkled ever so slightly. “It was much too large for my small frame and I needed both hands just to lift it.”

“Now _that_ is precious. Wait, are you any good with a sword?”

“Of course. All members of the royal line were taught to defend themselves in times of emergency. I daresay I was quite skilled, though I never quite reached my brothers’ level of proficiency.” As he spoke his eyes grew distant and Madara huffed. Distant was not what he wanted. Half the point of getting to know Tobirama was helping him get his mood out of the dark clouds he had all but permanently stapled to his own head.

“I’ve always wanted to learn,” Madara admitted. “Maybe you could teach me?”

Looking down at him, a little of the darkness lifted in favor of curiosity. “Teach you?”

“Yeah. I mean, it’s not like we’ve got anything better to do with our time, you know?”

Tobirama didn’t answer but he did look thoughtful and that was a hell of a lot better than letting him stew in whatever black hole he’d been about to spiral down. Learning to cross blades with someone a few good feet taller with roughly three times as much muscle was actually a little worrisome to consider when Madara thought about it further, wondering if he’d just signed his own death warrant.

Since it was too late to take the words back now he kept his silence and both of them disappeared in to their own thoughts as they made the trek back over to the far side of the castle where the stables were kept. It made sense, he supposed, to keep the armory and the mounts so close together. He just wished he’d known it was there earlier. All this time he could have been escaping Hashirama's endless babble to go relive his childhood playing soldier with real helmets and a sword that wouldn’t break no matter how many times he tripped over his own feet and smacked it in to a nearby tree.

What he was picturing in his mind was a small room with swords in neat rows and shields hung on the walls, perhaps a small selection of polearms to train with. Surely most knights must have owned their own personal weaponry and kept such things in their quarters. The outside of the building Tobirama led him to was rather unassuming looking, constructed with the same dim brick as the rest of the castle, completely devoid of any artistry or embellishment. Even the door was simple plain wood. When it was pushed open the inside was nothing but shadows and Madara stood blinking in to the darkness as his companion trundled inwards to find candles to light. When he found none Madara could hear him grumbling irritably, stomping over to throw open a window instead, midday light spilling inside to reveal the treasures within.

And what treasures indeed. The swords he had imagined were bigger and more impressive than he could have dreamed. Rather than hanging along the walls they were displayed on wooden racks, some of which also held pikes and halberds and naginata, but above them there were katana with intricate hilts he could hardly believe. Rows upon rows of daggers and poniards, a full display of tessen fans both parchment and metal, and on the opposite wall hung shields of every size and shape. At the end of the room there stood an open archway that he could only assume led to another room with just as many discoveries waiting for him to gush over like an excited child.

Flustered by so many incredible findings and unable to decide what he wanted to explore first, Madara could only spin in a circle letting his eyes roam over the dull blades and imagining how much more unbelievably impressive this collection would have been when there had existed a full staff of servants to care for each item properly.

He had very nearly spun all the way around in a full circle when he spotted a massive curved sickle not unlike the ones his fellow villagers used to sow wheat in the fields. This one topped a much shorter handle to be wielded single-handedly and was attached by a thick chain to an identical blade. With glee spreading across his face in an excited grin he made to step over to the sickles and heft them, to feel their weight, when he spotted it at last. The perfect grail.

“Is that a gunbai?” he breathed, approaching the weapon with reverence in his steps. Tobirama watched from where he remained by the window.

“A rather unorthodox one. If memory serves my grandfather commissioned that for ceremonial use. The man who crafted it sought my grandfather’s favor and so in place of a simple ceremonial piece of artistry he gifted to our family a battle-worthy gunbai as tall as himself.”

“It’s incredible!”

Taller than Madara himself, the massive war fan was constructed of steel and wood, painted with a repeating pattern around the edges to distract from the way they had been deliberately sharpened to a deadly point. When he very carefully wrapped his fingers around the handle and lifted the weapon it was so much heavier than he anticipated that he very nearly went crashing sideways trying to balance himself again.

“Do you know how to wield it?” Tobirama asked.

“Not a clue,” Madara admitted. “But I’ve read about them and I’ve always wanted to see one for myself.”

“Would you like to learn?”

Several nearby weapons rattled ominously as Madara spun around in shock and crashed the edge of the gunbai against a rack of throwing stars. “Are you serious!?”

“I fail to see why not when I had already planned to teach you the art of the sword. What harm is there in choosing a different weapon to better suit your tastes?” Tobirama shrugged in that haughty way of his as though he were offering nothing more momentous than afternoon tea.

“Then yeah! Yes! Oh man, Izuna is going to be so jealous!”

Hefting it again, Madara turned for the door and scurried out of the armory before Tobirama had a chance to call him back. Both halves of the buildings made a right angle that, together with the stables, created a box shape with one open side. When he made his way around he found himself in what must have once been a sparring ring or a practice field. Several wooden targets stood along one side of the square and a collection of straw dummies strapped to wooden poles lined another. Madara headed straight for the dummies and hefted his new weapon.

Only to realize that this would perhaps be a little more difficult to pick up than he had imagined with his swords made of broomsticks. The gunbai was _heavy_. Madara had never been a farmer for all that he lived in a small farming village, he’d never had quite the muscles that others built up after years of pulling plows and carrying massive bales of hay.

Tobirama came around the corner with an indulgent expression already hovering around the smile twitching his lips and Madara scowled at him before he even had a chance to open his mouth.

“As I was about to say before you dashed off oh so eagerly, it would perhaps be better to learn a set of strengthening exercises first before you injure yourself with such a large weapon that you are so unfamiliar with.” The bastard even had the gall to lift one eyebrow mockingly.

“Uggghhh that sounds like it’s going to be so much more effort than just learning how to swing this right.”

“Indeed. Much more work.”

“What use is magic if you can’t use it for cool stuff? I mean, screw immortality and shape-shifting. Why can’t some witch just pop over for tea and make me in to a battle master in one afternoon?” Madara slumped and stared mournfully down at the gunbai in his hands, picturing how cool he would look if he were able to dance across the field cutting down opponents with one hand. He would probably look even more impressive if he could use something like that sickle in his other hand.

Tobirama snorted and brought him back out of his daydreams. “Are all the youths of your generation so lazy?”

“Oh, youth am I? I’ll bet I’m older than you! Just because you’ve lived longer that doesn’t make you older!” Madara paused and frowned as he thought that through again. When he noticed the judgment in his companion’s face he scowled. “Shut up! I know what I meant!”

“Regardless, the question remains: would you care to learn a few strengthening exercises or not?”

Not wanting to embarrass himself any farther, Madara very reluctantly toted the gunbai back in to the armory where he placed it very carefully back where it came from. Then he followed Tobirama back out in to the training ring and listened with rapture to the new exercise regimen they would apparently be taking up daily from now on. Since most of his physical labor back home had involved mucking out stalls and carrying buckets of oats he’d never given much thought to how very average his muscle mass was and, honestly, he’d never had much motivation to do anything about it. It wasn’t as though he’d ever had anyone to impress.

Getting a bit of exercise every day was better than just sitting around in the kitchen watching Hashirama try to come up with ways to hug his wife without setting her on fire, though, and it wasn’t like he ever had any pressing duties to attend to. So long as he made sure Izuna was fed and had taken his medicine the rest of his days were generally filled with quite a lot of loafing about. If this new regimen happened to come with the added benefit of Tobirama’s face lighting up with true interest as he nattered on about lesson plans he was apparently already composing in his head then that could only be considered an additional bonus.

By the time they returned to the castle Madara was covered in sweat from head to toe and yet he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been in such high spirits. As he trained Tobirama had regaled him with stories of the few minor battles he’d been involved in during his youth when they’d been at war with one of the neighboring kingdoms and small forces had stupidly attempted an assault on the royal palace itself. Madara had been just as thrilled to discover they had something in common as he had been to listen to the story itself. If he couldn’t read the history books in the library then listening to a live retelling was just as good – better even. Listening to Tobirama meant he could interrupt with a dozen questions if he could catch his breath enough to ask them and enjoy all the small details historians never bothered to record.

“They did not!”

“I tell no lies. They watched us set up a vat of boiling oil in plain sight, set their ladders straight underneath it, and attempted to climb them as though somehow expecting us not to use whatever means necessary to repel them from our walls. I have never in my life heard a more startled scream.” Tobirama chuckled with sadistic amusement and Madara admired the glint of his misshapen grin.

“Maybe people really were just stupider in your time,” he teased. “I think Hashirama could be used as evidence for that.”

From around the corner a tinny voice could be heard shouting, “There’s no need to be cruel!”

Tobirama was already smiling but at the sight of his metal-bound sibling hopping around the corner with despair etched in to the shape of his face he began to laugh unrepentantly and Madara realized they had a second thing in common. They both enjoyed teasing Hashirama and watching the dramatics unfold. Nothing made for better entertainment than winding Hashirama up and then abandoning him to sob all over his wife, although that usually ended with having to deal with her death glare and leaving himself to the mercy of her cooking when mealtime came around again.

After letting his friend cry himself out over how mean they were being Madara made it up to him by letting Hashirama hop in to his hands and carrying him with them as they travelled the halls.

“Mito and I were concerned when you failed to arrive for dinner; I was coming to see where you might have gotten off to. Why is all of your clothing so damp?”

“We were training!” Madara told him excitedly.

“How exciting! Ah, what were you training?” Hashirama listened with rapt attention while Madara extolled upon the beauties of all the incredible finds revealed to him inside the armory and moaned wistfully when told about Tobirama’s promise to teach him the art of battle. “Oh to hold a blade in my hand again, to hear the singing of steel and the rush of battle.”

Tobirama snorted above them. “Do not pretend you are not a pacifist for all that I never managed to best you on the field.”

“Sparring was ever different from true battle. I would give anything to feel the ache in my limbs after hours of training or the drip of sweat upon my brow. As the years turn I find that I…I quite forget what it was to feel the burn of the sun in my eyes or the kiss of the wind.” Hashirama drooped momentarily and Madara stared at the candelabra in his hands.

It wasn’t often his friend opened up in such a way about how much he missed being human. Beyond the daily mourning of his inability to hold Mito close he generally avoided the subject and even then his yearnings were so overdone Madara realized he had started to treat them as jokes. A quick glance up told him that Tobirama was just as floored by the open admittance, though surprise quickly turned to heavy guilt and he looked away. When Madara looked back down he noted Hashirama following his line of sight only for his own face to crumple with remorse.

“Forgive me little brother, I did not mean to be so maudlin.”

“You should not censor your speech for my sake,” Tobirama forced out. “If you will excuse me, I do believe the mood will improve if I am not present.”

Before either of them could say a word to convince him otherwise he had already turned to storm off in the opposite direction with his long loping stride, too fast for Madara to catch up with unless he broke in to a run. They watched him go until he turned a corner in the hallway and then Madara looked down to the friend he carried between his hands.

“And I had just gotten him in to a better mood,” he sighed, much to Hashirama's obvious chagrin.

“Oh my. I may have, as you say, messed up.”

“Just a little. He’ll forgive you though.”

“But will he forgive himself?”

Madara twisted his mouth to one side and looked back in the direction where Tobirama had disappeared. That was a good question. After spending a day together finally he felt much closer to the other, could see how they might actually become great friends, and with every interaction he found himself more and more determined to help Hashirama with the quest to remind Tobirama of his own humanity. That the actions he believed had made him a monster were truly the only choice he’d had, something anyone in his position would have had to do. They may have lost many lives in the plague but from the story he’d been told Madara would bet that Tobirama’s quick and decisive actions had saved many more.

And he would be willing to bet that the idiot hadn’t let anyone say that to him in a long time.

“Where’s Kagami?” he asked. Hashirama perked up.

“I do believe he was heading to royal apartments when I left the study. What excellent timing! My brother has ever found solace in his young student. As much as I have never doubted his love for me I understand why it is often difficult for him to face me. There is simply too much guilt in him.”

“And in you,” Madara pointed out.

His friend nodded sadly. “We make for quite a morose pair.”

“Well, while Kagami distracts his royal grumpiness I don’t suppose I can convince you to tell me the story of how this all happened again? I want to get the details straight. I think it’s about time someone yelled in his face that he’s being stupid.”

Hashirama gaped at him.

“You would not possibly be so insensitive!”

“Oh yes I would,” Madara grunted. “He’s being mopey and dumb and that’s the whole reason this mess started. I get it, he feels really shitty about what happened. But if it were anyone else they would have gotten over themselves by now. He needs a wakeup call and I am just the rude asshole to do it.”

He continued to stump along the halls on his way to the kitchen where he knew Mito would be hard at work in the middle of her dinner preparations. For a woman without hands or limbs she was able to whip up some rather incredible creations. He should really start saying thank you more often. It took several hallways of walking in silence for Hashirama to shift in his hands, crossing both arms with an uncharacteristically serious expression.

“I cannot say I agree with your methods but what passes between the two of you in conversation is simply not my business,” he concluded. “You have requested the tale and I will tell you. What you do with that information is out of my control.” Madara offered him a grin.

“That’s the spirit.”

“Perhaps this could wait until after dinner, however? I would not wish to upset my wife.”

“Whatever you want, big guy. Were you big? I saw a portrait of you and your brothers but I never asked which one was you and it’s hard to judge height from a portrait.”

Finally a shadow of cheer returned to Hashirama's engraved countenance as he replied with a sly undertone, “Taller than you, my friend. If you have more questions along that nature I would be more than happy to extoll upon my own beauty as you sate your hunger!”

“Ugh, don’t make it sound so gross!”

The two of them bickered good-naturedly all the way in to the kitchen where Mito was putting the finishing touches on a gorgeous spread of some western dish known as shepherd’s pie. Madara was more than happy to let the good mood rest for a little longer before the conversation returned to somber topics, allowing himself to be pulled in to some lighter reminiscing about the good old days. Yet even as Hashirama spent ten minutes alone trying to find the perfect comparison for the exact red shade that Mito’s hair had been he found his thoughts drifting away to another part of the castle.

Somewhere in the bowels of this oversized stone bucket Tobirama was beating himself up for something that happened countless years before and hadn’t even been his fault, wrapping himself in misery while the rest of them allowed themselves a moment of jocularity. If he were honest with himself Madara understood that a large part of his motivation for helping Tobirama was the selfish desire for his life to go back to the way it had been, for the ability to leave this castle and return to the life he’d been stolen away from. And yet the more time he spent here the more he had begun to wonder with each new day.

Was leaving truly what he still desired?


	6. Chapter 6

“I don’t feel good.” Izuna’s voice rasped with the ache of his latest coughing fit and Madara winced with sympathy.

“You don’t look good either,” he admitted.

He was granted a weak smile for his honesty before Izuna closed his eyes and allowed his body to go completely lax. Madara very gently swept the damp bangs away from his brother’s face, tucking them behind one flushed ear before he went on gently petting the younger man’s head as he had been for the past half hour. As night attacks went this one had been fairly mild but there was never a time he wasn’t worried to be woken in the middle of the night to find Izuna coughing up blood.

The medicine had run out yesterday. Just thinking about it made his heart want to stop inside his chest. Without Izuna in his world Madara didn’t think he could go on. Even the friends he’d been making here in the castle could never be enough to replace the last broken piece of a once happy family. Now here he was running his hands through sweaty hair and wondering if the patron of this place might listen if he dared to send a prayer. When he was young the Great Sannin were nothing more than folklore, bedtime stories that children were never truly meant to believe, but as far as he understood it Lady Tsunade had been watching over the royal family for generations untold until Tobirama’s moping kicked off a hissy fit of her own.

Would she answer the desperate pleading of one random human generations later with no connection to the royalty she once presided over? He doubted it.

“I told you a hundred times,” he mumbled quietly as though to himself. “Without your medicine your condition will only get worse and the only way to get your medicine is in the city.”

“But if I left then I would forget you. I don’t want to forget you; you’re everything I have.”

“Doesn’t matter what you want now, I guess. You wouldn’t make it halfway across the grounds let alone all the way to the city to see that witch of a doctor.” Madara curled his body over the head resting in his lap and squeezed both eyes shut. “Stupid. It would have been better for you to forget me.”

Izuna would have snapped back with something else probably equally stupid if he hadn’t taken such a deep breath in and set off a coughing fit. All Madara could do was hold him through it and squeeze his eyes shut a little more tightly, unwilling to look at the world around him. What use was the beauty and the luxury if he had no brother to share it with? What use was a world in which the last of his family had finally been taken away?

Once the coughing subsided Izuna slipped in to a doze but Madara refused to move more than it took to shift the weight of his head from one leg to the other. If these were to be their last days together he didn’t want to waste a single moment of the time they had left, even if that time was spent doing nothing more than watching the other breathe slowly in and out, counting each rise of that frail chest like a final countdown he couldn’t see the end of yet. Sometimes he wondered how their life would have turned out if their parents had stayed. Would they have enough money to go to a real doctor? Would that doctor have been able to help? Useless questions he couldn’t answer but they were all that filled his mind with nothing else to distract his spiraling thoughts.

Until an unexpected rapping sound brought his head snapping around to blink rapidly at the door.

“Madara?” Tobirama’s voice called through the wood. “Hashirama tells me you did not come down for breakfast. He asked that I ensure you are well.”

“I’m fine,” Madara called back. It would have been more convincing if his voice hadn’t broken on the second word.

“May I enter?”

His first instinct was to hiss and deny entry. This was a private moment, a private matter, and he couldn’t help the urge to hide his poor brother away from anything that might hurt him even by accident. But Tobirama sounded concerned and there was truly no point in hiding this any longer.

When Izuna passed Madara knew he would not long survive his brother. The least he could do was grant Tobirama the closure of knowing that none of this was anyone’s fault but the cruel world they lived in.

“Come in,” he called.

The door opened a moment later to reveal Tobirama’s massive horned head, oddly small looking with the way he was crouched as though to make himself appear as unthreatening as possible. Normally Madara would have loved to analyze and tease him for such a thing but now he found he simply hadn’t the energy for much more than blinking slowly at the guest in their room and trying not to vomit his heart out on to the floor between them.

“Is Izuna unwell?” Tobirama asked as he caught sight of them, his voice pitched low respectfully.

“Yeah. He’s…Izuna has always been sick, for a long time even before we came here. I’m sorry we didn’t tell you.” There didn’t feel like an easier way to say it. It wasn’t as though none of the castle’s residents hadn’t witnessed his brother coughing or watching him stagger through the halls when the weakness hit particularly hard but since he kept to their room most of the time and the great bulk of his interactions had been with Hashirama, too easily distracted, they had managed to avoid most questions.

“What aid might I offer?”

Tobirama’s words gave him pause and he found himself caught between touched and choked, forced to speak past a lump rising in his throat. “There isn’t any help you can give. He’s dying. Without his medicine he can’t breathe. And we…he…it’s all gone now. There was only so much in his bags. I guess the time magic doesn’t affect anything brought from the outside”

“Medicine?” Stepping further in to the room, Tobirama’s gaze intensified. “What ails him? We may be able to concoct something.”

“You can’t! Okay? You just can’t! The only healer we could ever afford lives in the city and it’s a full day journey there and back. But the distance doesn’t matter because he won’t go! He won’t leave! I’m stuck here so he refuses to leave too because–” The words cut off as a sob escaped and Madara clapped a hand over his mouth, mortified.

But what did it matter if he broke down? In the end he supposed it mattered very little to let himself be seen as weak. Maybe if he shamed himself his new friends would miss him a little less.

Rather than look at all put off by the mess Madara was making of himself Tobirama took another step closer with his expression pulling down in to deeper concern. One of his hands lifted and for a moment it looked like he might reach out but it dropped again a moment later, consternation in his eyes instead of the pity Madara had expected. His gaze lowered to take in what details he could of the resting Izuna before he spoke again.

“If all we can do for him is to make him more comfortable, is that not also worth the effort?” he asked solemnly. “Please tell me what ailment plagues him. The library here contains many things and although I have never made a study of the subject I know that we have a large selection of medical texts. There may be something we can do.”

“Oh. Yeah. I guess I never thought about just making him comfortable. I mean, I’ve been doing what I can but…” Again the words trailed off as they stuck in his throat and the guilt of his own failures threatened to swallow him. Emotions had ever been Madara's biggest foil. “We don’t even know what it’s called. The healer he goes to see has never bothered to give him a name for the condition but I can list the symptoms. Would that help?”

“Immensely.”

“Right, well, the biggest one is the coughing. He coughs a lot and sometimes when it’s a bad attack he brings up a kind of bloody mucus stuff. And he’s just tired all the time, really weak, but he gets night sweats and sometimes he wakes up with a bad fever. Some days he can’t really breathe and he says his chest hurts.” Just describing all of it made his own chest hurt.

Tobirama hummed thoughtfully and nodded to himself, his gaze still locked on the man they were discussing. “I can see that you would rather stay at your brother’s side so I will not disturb you. While you tend to him I will peruse the library for the most reputable texts available. Ah; before that I will send Hashirama to bring you some food. An empty stomach will help no one.” He waited until Madara nodded, unable to find anymore words to respond with, then after a final pause in which he looked as though he wanted to say something more Tobirama turned and left the room.

In his wake the room was filled with nothing but Izuna’s labored breathing and the sound of Madara's blood pounding through his own ears. He was not, however, alone for long. As promised, Hashirama arrived some twenty minutes later with Mito bearing a tray across the width of her spokes floating along behind him. She deposited the food and excused herself but Hashirama stayed to question what was going on, the same concern in his eyes as his brother had worn.

“Tobirama told me only that your beloved Izuna was ill and that you did not wish to leave his side. Is it serious?” As he spoke he climbed up to sit upon the edge of the bedside table where he could look up in to Madara's eyes from the relative height of a small child.

“Yeah, it’s serious.”

“I see.”

Madara turned his head away and resumed carding his fingers through Izuna’s hair. He didn’t really want to repeat his long depressing list of symptoms and he didn’t have a word for what was killing his brother. If Hashirama had more questions he could ask his own sibling. Thankfully his friend chose instead to do what he did best: he babbled. Even when his incessant chatter was met with a resounding lack of response he went on and on about whatever happened to cross his mind and Madara did nothing to stop him. In a way it helped, giving his own mind something to focus on other than this utter helplessness, and he wished he had it in him to express his gratitude for the distraction.

Though he was glad he didn’t have to give voice to such dour thoughts Madara didn’t actually have much hope that Tobirama would be able to dig up anything useful in that ancient library of theirs. Magic had been holding this place suspended in time for decades, probably more than a hundred years. Would doctors that long ago have even known about half the diseases that plagued the world today? Would they have discovered or studied them?

Izuna stirred once or twice as the time passed waiting for Tobirama to return, though he never truly woke. Quiet whimpers escaped and Madara held his breath each time for fear of the whimpers blossoming in to another violent coughing fit. He was relieved both to have his fears proven unnecessary and for the volume of Hashirama's voice as his friend went on with his never-ending speech entirely unaware of Izuna’s near wakings. The normalcy of such chatter also did wonders to help Madara pretend that this was nothing more than a usual day for all of them, nothing to panic about.

Of course, that didn’t mean he wasn’t immediately and completely riveted on the hulking form entering his room when Tobirama finally returned after more than two hours. Madara stopped himself from belligerently demanding to know what had taken so long only by reminding himself that the journey to the library alone would have taken quite some time there and back even without considering how many hundreds of shelves of books he had seen when he entered the room himself. Just walking around and looking at all the titles would take forever before he even managed to pull any of them down to peruse the contents. Making it back in two hours probably meant that either he hadn’t looked at all of the books yet or he had known exactly which section to go to.

The first words out of his mouth as he entered the room were, “Has there been any change?” When Madara shook his head Tobirama hefted the stack of books between his massive arms. “Let us hope he continues to rest then. I have several tomes here which I found promising.”

Hashirama hopped out of the way so that his brother could set the books down on the end table, clambering up to stand on the headboard instead while Tobirama removed the first one at the very top of the stack and slipped it open to a spot somewhere near the end. For a few moments his eyes skimmed over the words again in silence but before he said anything a disappointed frown appeared between his brows and he shook his head, setting that volume aside.

“My apologies, I must have brought that one by mistake.” As he spoke he was already reaching for the next book and flipping through the pages.

“You did not bring nearly as many with you as I had expected,” Hashirama observed from his new perch.

“No, I did not have the means to carry them all up at once, but I have a list of titles prepared should it be necessary to continue our search.” Tobirama hummed at his new book, turning it from side to side, and it wasn’t until he lowered it with a mildly sheepish look that Madara realized he was attempting to decipher an illustration. “I would be just as happy not to need those, however. So many trips up and down the length of the castle can only lead to exhaustion.”

“You have grown lazy, brother,” Hashirama chuckled.

Tobirama did not deign to respond.

After reading a chapter or two in the new book he’d picked up it too was set aside and deemed irrelevant to the illness they were researching. He made it through two more before Madara began to grumble about not being able to help and Hashirama offered to make a team with him. With his dexterous fingers Madara held the tomes and turned the pages while Hashirama used his familiarity with the fancy hand-lettered pages to read the contents. It made for much slower progress than Tobirama was able to accomplish on his own but it did help them get through a few more books than they would have if they did nothing but sit in silence and watch. Reading had never been a fun spectator sport.

Though Madara did note that there was a certain fascination to be found in watching Tobirama react to whatever he was finding in his own pages, emotions rising freely on his face in a way they normally wouldn’t in conversation. Evidently he was victim to the same habit as Madara. Both of them seemed prone to forgetting the world outside of whatever riveting information they were able to soak up as they read.

Sometime later Izuna awoke for a very brief period and questioned why their room was so full, though he didn’t seem able to pay attention when Madara explained what everyone was doing. He fell asleep again rather quickly. Perhaps just shy of three hours after their collective research binge began, when they were down to the last of the second load Tobirama brought up to go through, it was Hashirama who leaped up on to what passed for his feet and promptly tumbled down on to the mattress at Madara's side in his excitement. Apologies mixed in with excited bubbling as he demanded Tobirama come over to look at the page they were on.

Unable to decipher what the hell he was looking at and recognizing that he probably wouldn’t know what to do with the information anyway, Madara handed the book over easily when Tobirama reached for it.

“Has your brother lost weight since this illness began?” Tobirama asked just when the wait felt as though it would go on forever.

“Now that you mention it, yeah.” Madara blinked thoughtfully. “When he first started getting sick he lost a ton of weight and he’s never really gained it back.”

“Excellent. Has he ever experienced a swelling of the neck?”

“Yes! It was the only time I ever went to town to see the doctor in his place. He said it was because the sickness gave his blood an infection or something. Whatever it was, the medicine helped and the swelling went away. It was only once.”

Tobirama nodded slowly, the light of triumph shining brightly in his eyes. “Tuberculosis,” he said. “A disease only discovered a handful of years before we were locked in to time. It may have been researched more deeply since then but what information we have should be enough. This tome is _invaluable_. Every symptom is listed, an explanation of how the body is affected, even an outline for a plan of treating the patient!”

“Wait, a treatment? It says how to make the medicine?” Madara held his breath and moved his hands away from Izuna’s hair to grip the sheets underneath him instead.

“Indeed it does,” Tobirama breathed.

For a handful of moments the two of them hung suspended, incapable of doing anything but staring at each other in silence. In those moments Madara felt only disbelief but it was the happiest disbelief he had ever experienced in his life and he could have stay trapped in that staring contest for hours without a single complaint. Or he could have if not for the bundle of walking exuberance that was Hashirama.

“Oh happy day!” he burst out suddenly, startling them both. “What excellent news!”

“Mmphhh-what?” With an inelegant snort Izuna too was startled back in to the waking world, squinting his eyes around at them all in a way that clearly demonstrated how little he remembered of the last time he had awoken.

“Good morning,” Madara greeted him with uncharacteristic cheer.

Izuna blinked up at him suspiciously. “Are you having a party in the room while I sleep? What the hell is going on?”

“Oh nothing much. We’re all just sitting around and watching Tobirama save your life, that’s all.” The grin on his face felt as though it couldn’t be contained, feverish relief and the high of knowing he may not have to watch his only surviving brother die in front of him all mixing together in to a manic, undirected sort of energy that his body didn’t know how to deal with.

“Gonna need a little more information than that.”

It was Hashirama who happily recounted the tale of all they had been doing as their patient dozed the day away. Surprisingly, Izuna listened to him quietly without interrupting and when the tale was done he very carefully struggled to sit up. Madara hurried to support his frail body until he was able to balance himself on the edge of the mattress and bow his head deeply in Tobirama’s direction. As stunned by this as Madara, Tobirama didn’t seem to know how he was meant to react.

“Thank you,” Izuna told him quietly. “I’ve known for a long time that my death was a possibility in a situation like this where I can’t get my medicine and I’d made my peace with that. But Madara never did. I know you did this for him more than for me and for that I thank you.”

“You should owe me no thanks if my actions were selfish,” Tobirama mumbled. He looked even more confused when Izuna lifted his head to reveal a smirk.

“Admitting your guilt?”

“Of course not!” Tobirama balked. “I did not agree with your assumption, I merely pointed out the inconsistencies!”

Hearing Izuna laugh, even as every other breath came short and interrupted by wracking coughs, left Madara with a feeling like the whole room was spinning around him with happiness. Knowing there was a way to help him without sending him away was a leaden burden off his shoulders and he felt almost weightless in the absence of such long-held dread. Between the options of losing his brother to death or magic neither had been great but now he wouldn’t have to lose anything and the remaining tatters of Izuna’s pride could survive as well, his choice to stay no longer affected with deadly consequences.

Pulling the younger man in to a tight embrace, Madara stole as much of a hug as Izuna would allow with company there in the room. When he was inevitably pushed away he shuffled off the mattress at last and smiled unashamedly as he watched his brother fall in to conversation with Hashirama. It took a minute or so to pull his eyes away but when he did it was to find Tobirama watching him with what he imagined was probably a similar expression to the one he himself was wearing.

“What?”

“Forgive me, I did not mean to stare. It is good to see you so free of worry.” Tobirama lowered his head in a simulacrum of a bow. “You have my deepest apologies for not noticing earlier that something was amiss. Please believe that if I had known I would have offered what aid I could.”

“Yeah, I know that.” Well, he knew that now.

Satisfied with that answer, Tobirama closed the book containing all of Madara's hope for the future, gripping it firmly in one hand and gesturing vaguely towards the door with his other. “It would be best for me to begin straight away. Some time will be needed to gather the ingredients and prepare the brew described herein.”

“Can I come?” Madara asked. “I’d feel better if I knew how to make it myself too. Then, you know, if you’re ever busy…”

“I could never be too busy to care for another life above mine,” Tobirama murmured softly.

Thankfully Madara's gawping was neatly covered by Izuna piping up from across the room. “Wait, hold up, you’re not leaving are you? It gets really boring up here, you know! Now I’m all awake and you’re bugging out on me. Unfair!”

As immune as he pretended to be to such manipulations Madara was admittedly a little torn at seeing the deep pout on his brother’s face until Hashirama suggested that he come downstairs as well for some fresh air. Even if he could not be in the room once Tobirama began to mix what potion was described in the book it would probably do him a world of good to get out of the stale air here in their bedroom. Izuna agreed with surprisingly little fight to be carried down the stairs in Madara's arms and allowed himself to be bundled up in several layers of clothing while Hashirama dashed about the hallways to locate a treasure Madara had never dreamed of.

The wheeled chair could probably be better described as a very small cart but it was just the perfect size to prop Izuna up with a blanket across his lap while Madara pushed him along. With such ease of transport and Tobirama walking ahead to break a path through the snow with his massive legs it was a delight to gift Izuna with his first journey outside of the castle since they arrived all the many weeks ago.

In all the commotion of getting everyone downstairs and ready to go out it was no surprise they attracted Mito and Kagami as well, making the outing twice as meaningful with everyone there together for perhaps the first time. Hashirama and Kagami brazenly climbed in to the wheeled chair with Izuna and were quickly made comfortable riding on his knees while the three of them chattered away like old friends. Or rather while the two of them chattered away and Izuna put in his two cents whenever he could catch his breath to do so. Madara worried for him out here in the cold air but the color in his cheeks and the way he seemed to sit up a little straighter kept any mothering instincts muffled. He looked happy. Bright. _Alive_. Madara simply didn’t have it in him to disturb that.

When they reached the garden he fetched a shovel while Tobirama dipped his massive hands underneath the snow to suss out which plants were growing where. Despite the magically induced winter time was not actually moving and the plants were as much alive as the pantries were full every morning. They left the three chatterboxes off to one side with Mito hovering over them all protectively and when Madara returned with a shovel he set to work with Tobirama digging out the ingredients they would need. It mattered little what damage they caused since the grounds would repair themselves overnight – which turned out to be a good thing since neither of them had ever spent much time mucking around in garden plots. The prince and the stable boy, quite the pair they made with dirt on their palms comparing root shapes to the illustrations in the book they had found.

It took long enough to be sure they had everything they needed that when they all trudged back in to the minimal warmth of the castle Mito instructed them all to congregate in the kitchen while she whipped up something for dinner before any other steps were taken. Madara's stomach rumbling in agreement reminded him that he hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Which meant that neither had Izuna or Tobirama. In all the excitement he hadn’t given much thought to food.

Eating, however, did not take long at all and before too much time had passed Madara was slipping out of the room at Tobirama’s side, giddy with relief that Izuna seemed content enough to stay and keep letting Kagami chatter his ear off. The two of them seemed to be making fast friends but that was no surprise. It was hard to deny how adorable Kagami was. Something about the innocence of childhood seemed amplified in him, undimmed by the many years he’d been locked in this young age unable to grow any farther. Madara couldn’t help but think that it would almost be a shame to see him move past this stage if and when they were finally allowed to break free from the magic that held them here.

The room Tobirama led him to was not that far away, merely a few doors down. Far enough away not to contaminate any food cooked in the kitchens but close enough for the chefs and the physicians to share any ingredients common between them easily. Madara peered around himself curiously when they entered, trying to envision what this place would have looked like when there were bodies to fill it with bustling activity. In a castle this big there must have been people constantly falling ill or injuring themselves so he supposed the physicians must have been kept fairly busy.

“Help me to clear this station?” Tobirama asked, indicating the spot he wanted with one massive hand. Madara obliged by grabbing the closest rag he could see and wiping off the dust so Tobirama could set down all the ingredients they had gathered.

“Before we start,” he murmured, casting around for paper and something to write with, “I don’t suppose you could read the recipe out to me? We should have more than one copy just in case and I would feel more comfortable if I could read at least one of them. Stupid loopy writing.”

Tobirama did so without complaint, repeating any passages he had to when Madara told him he was using too many of those overly fancy words. When the copy was finally done they both began assembling the ingredients they would need first without needing to discuss which ones they were. They had both just gone over it, after all. Since Tobirama knew where all of the equipment would be he began pulling out mortar and pestle, pots, bowls, and other assorted instruments. While he did that Madara took up the knife he was handed and began dicing some of the herbs taken from the garden.

Since neither of them were overly chatty people and the tasks at hand required some measure of concentration the room was silent around them but for the sounds of chopping or grinding and yet there was a peaceful feeling to it all. Working side by side with a common goal was comfortable. Madara felt nothing more than relief that he wasn’t expected to keep the conversation going when he didn’t feel much like talking.

He did take a moment to pause as he measured out a very specific amount of water to begin boiling away any impurities, sliding his gaze to one side and watching the precise movements of Tobirama’s hands, the care with which he handled every tool. It meant more than Madara could say that his friend seemed to be taking this medicine and Izuna’s illness as seriously as he did. Nothing he could think of would suffice to express how grateful he was but he knew he would have to try anyway. This wasn’t the sort of gratitude that should go unspoken, assumed and implied but never expressed.

“Can I ask you a question?” he mumbled as he struggled to light one of the ancient stoves on one side of the room. Tobirama hummed inquisitively. “Before…I mean before you were even king…what did you like to do for fun?”

“Fun?” Tobirama lifted his head with a baffled expression.

“Yeah. I mean, you couldn’t have sat around all day waiting for your brother to get sick so you could take the throne. From what Hashirama told me you didn’t even want it.”

His friend blinked, his eyes taking on a distant expression. “No, I never wanted to be king. My brother was ever the better man and I was more than content to swear my loyalty to him. Before duty called me to his rightful place I…I actually spent much of my time here.”

“Like, you mean in this room?” Madara asked, gesturing vaguely at the rest of the tables and equipment. He watched a smile bloom on the twisted face before him and wondered how he had ever thought this man a beast.

“Indeed, in this very room. Science was always a great passion of mine. I devoted much of my childhood to studying whatever texts I could get my hands on and when I grew old enough to be trusted with safety precautions I was allowed to visit here and perform experiments of my own design. Nothing brought me more joy than to see the results of my own mind take shape before me.” Wistfulness painted his features but it was the wistfulness of recalling happy memories without quite the same mournful edge that he usually carried.

Madara grinned. “So you’re right at home, then?”

He was thrilled to receive a grin back.

“This is not the most complicated brew I have ever made by far. Now, help me crush these to extract the oil and I will show you how to distill these leaves afterwards. The temperature must be just right.”

Clearly in his element, Tobirama went back to his tasks with a new energy that Madara found he had a little difficulty looking away from. It was good to know that making this medicine would not be a burden. With how easily they seemed to be working together this might actually be an activity the two of them could bond over whenever a new batch was needed.

Yet as much fun as he was suddenly having Madara paused to stare down at the pods he was crushing, a new thought forming as he considered the knowledge that these plants would all replenish themselves in the morning.

“Will the magic reset all of this? Everything always resets with a new day, all of the plants will be back in the field when we wake up, so will the medicine we make disappear too?” He looked over to see that Tobirama had paused as well, contemplative. They traded a wary look.

“Let us hope that there is some mercy left in this magic,” was all the answer he could give.

Madara nodded to him and went back to his work with a new will. Whether the medicine disappeared or not it was still worth the effort to make it. If he had to come down here and make a new batch every damn day then he would and he would never complain. For Izuna he would stay here in this room and boil herbs day and night, would sleep in the room and never see the sun again. He might, considering what he had just learned about Tobirama, even have a little help.

And that was enough to bring a smile back to his face as the two of them worked on with a comfortable silence once more falling down around them.


	7. Chapter 7

Gently swirling the contents of the flask in his hands, Madara watched the translucent liquid rotate in small waves for a few moments before lowering it to resume rolling the glass between both palms as he had been for the past several minutes. In general he’d never been the type for nervous fidgeting but Hashirama's suggestion had confused him and awoken a strange nervous energy of sorts.

“This medicine is for Izuna,” he said slowly.

“Yes,” Hashirama agreed, “but I believe it is important that you take some as well.”

“Why would I drink someone else’s medicine?” It seemed a waste, especially after the happy discovery that it did not disappear at the midnight reset.

Hopping closer along the kitchen counter, Hashirama lifted both hands to still his movements, the wicks in his candles thankfully unlit. “It may do you some good as well. My brother assisted me in reading several of the journals we did not look through before and one of them mentioned that those who spend time near a person infected with your brother’s illness may contract it themselves.”

“But I’m not sick! I’m not coughing or anything! Wouldn’t I have shown some kind of symptoms by this point?”

“Ah, there lies the rub. According to one physician’s notes the illness may lie dormant for months or even years without any signs until something awakens the symptoms. I believe it was referred to as latent tuberculosis – and I also believe that you may have been infected.” Hashirama's candles gripped him tightly as one might clutch at someone’s fingers. “Please, my friend, allot yourself a portion of this medicine. It would not do to cure your brother at last only to fall ill yourself instead!”

Madara lowered his gaze to stare at the flask again, turning that information over in his mind. He’d heard of that before. One of the farmers he used to serve at the inn had stopped coming in to the village square when people finally put two and two together to realize that any pregnant woman who came in contact with him tended to lose the child. They called him a ‘carrier’, although what he was carrying Madara had never bothered to figure out. He himself would never have a wife, what with his attraction to men, so he hadn’t cared much to learn about the exact dangers.

After promising Hashirama he would think about it Madara disentangled himself from their odd embrace and hurried away. The flask slipped neatly in to his pocket for later while he strode through the halls towards the front door. His limbs began to shiver the moment he stepped outside but it was easy enough to put up with a bit of shivering when he knew he would be sweating through his coat very shortly.

True to an earlier promise, Tobirama had thrown himself in to the task of training Madara in the use of a gunbai with surprising enthusiasm. Six out of seven days they met, ran through a specific set of warm up stretches to loosen their muscles, then sparred until the massive weapon began to slip from Madara's grasp. Apparently he could only be considered a master of the art when he could endure any amount of abuse without ever allowed the gunbai to leave his grip. Considering how tired he usually was at the end of their daily exercise Madara had quickly built an appreciation for the strength of warriors in Tobirama’s time. They must have taken battle quite seriously.

Struggle as he might, in the end Madara was forced to admit defeat when he could not convince his arms to lift the weapon he had fallen in love with even one more time. The entire bottom half of his body was soaked through from stumbling around in the snow but his shirts were damp only with the sweat from his own body as he jammed the gunbai in to the ground and leaned heavily on it in an attempt to catch his breath.

“Your abilities are growing at an admirable rate,” Tobirama mentioned, already politely cleaning the blade he preferred to use for their training sessions.

“Right,” Madara snorted. “My ability to get clobbered in to the ground.”

His friend granted him a fond smile. “Would it make you feel better to know that I would be much less of an opponent were I blessed with my natural size once more?”

“You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”

“Truly I am not. I was trained as all my brothers were but I had other pursuits which caught my interest and swordplay was not one of them. What makes me formidable now is the sheer size of this cursed body.” With a wry twist of his mouth Tobirama gestured down the front of him with one massive arm and Madara paused to consider that.

“I guess if you didn’t have arms the size of my calves you wouldn’t pack so much of a punch, yeah. You’d probably still grind me in to the dirt.”

Coming forward to help him stand and leading them both towards the armory, Tobirama hummed. “Would that I could pit you against Hashirama instead. You may not see it but I do: your stamina has already improved by leaps and bounds, your movements are stronger. Already you may have surpassed my abilities.” Oddly enough he even looked proud to say so rather than the clenched jaw of forcing out an unwanted admission as Madara would have expected from anyone else he’d ever known.

He kept his silence as they made their way inside the armory to finish cleaning their weapons and put them away. Proper storage and care of one’s things was something Tobirama was rather vehement about, though Madara happened to feel the same so it wasn’t exactly a lesson hard learned. As much as he usually enjoyed the few moments when it was not considered weird to lavish tender affection on an inanimate object, though, his thoughts drifted to other concerns as he went through the motions today entirely on autopilot. Neither of them spoke until the gunbai and sword were both hung back in their proper places and Tobirama was already turning for the door when Madara's voice called him back.

“Sometimes,” he began slowly, “you have a good day and the way you talk is almost hopeful. But then other days you talk like you expect to live forever stuck in time the way you are.” Unsurprisingly Tobirama’s expression immediately turned somber.

“It is not being outside of time’s flow that bothers me but–”

“Yeah, I know, the body. But the body isn’t yours. You just acknowledged that yourself.”

“Perhaps. But it is the form I deserve.” One of Tobirama’s hands slid down to press against where the fur covering his legs rose up over his hips as well.

Madara turned a little more towards him and very carefully did not fold his arms in an effort to avoid confrontational body language. “No it isn’t. No matter what mistakes you think you’ve made – and we all know you made none – that doesn’t make you a beast or an animal or anything. If anything that probably makes you more human than ever.”

“How, precisely?” Tobirama asked incredulously.

“It’s in the nature of humans to make mistakes.” Madara shrugged. “It’s what we do. We’re imperfect and we try our best but it’s just…it’s human to fail.”

He wasn’t really surprised to see Tobirama look away from him uncomfortably. If he ever did get all of these idiots back in to their human selves the first thing he was going to do was smack Hashirama upside the head for never saying half the things this man so clearly needed to hear. None of these thoughts should have been allowed to take hold of him. If Madara had been around back then he would have been kicking in doors to give Tobirama a piece of his mind, telling him all the things he needed to hear no matter how badly he didn’t want to hear them.

A blind man could tell that his words had already made the other uncomfortable but Madara was merciless. Better late than never.

“I won’t bother dragging the whole argument out of the closet, you already know my opinions on what happened and your lack of blame for it all, but I just…do you really see yourself as not _human_ anymore just for that? Even after all this time?”

“Would any human do to another what I did?” Tobirama asked quietly.

“Yes! Lots of them! Literally any one of us would kill one person to save the lives of a hundred others, especially if that one person was already dying and happy to have their suffering end.” And oh how those poor people had probably been grateful to have their suffering end.

Tobirama looked away. “It was not one person but hundreds,” he insisted. “That is different.”

“No, it really isn’t.”

Madara almost reveled in the frustration he could see behind his friend’s eyes. That was good. Frustration was another human emotion and the harder Tobirama fought to prove his point the more opportunities Madara would have to show him how he was wrong. And he had always loved proving people wrong.

“You were born a human,” he went on mercilessly. “You learned as a human, you grew as a human, and from that ripped up portrait I caught a glance of you looked pretty damn human to me. But if you’re so damn determined to be a monster then answer me one question. How does that make you any different?”

“I…I do not follow…”

“Does the form of a monster determine its insides? Can you tell from looking at a man whether he teaches children or murders them in their beds? No. So just because what you might call a monster has some kind of twisted body or ugly outsides that doesn’t mean the insides are ugly too. You don’t know! Maybe the monster under your bed just really needs a hug or something!”

Barely remembering he was trying to keep his body language open, Madara propped both fists on his hips and nodded in approval of his own points, silently enjoying the flabbergasted way Tobirama was staring at him. It wasn’t often he got to flap the unflappable king of cool. Or so he sometimes referred to Tobirama in his head. Whether it was the era he’d been brought up in or just his natural composure the other had a tendency to remain calm and utterly in control of himself at all times – or until Madara said something that hit one of his weak points.

It felt like a good sign that it took a couple of minutes for Tobirama to compose himself enough to speak again. Clearly if he wasn’t speaking he was thinking because this was a man whose brain simply never shut off but as long as he was giving consideration to the right thoughts Madara decided he didn’t mind the wait.

“You are…unlike any other I have ever met,” was the final conclusion.

“Eh? I guess you haven’t met a lot of decent people in your life.” Madara paused thoughtfully. “Or maybe you just haven’t met enough assholes, Izuna tells me I’m an asshole all the time.”

A look of fondness flashed across Tobirama’s face. “Your insistence upon seeing me as more than I am is both flattering and delusional yet I cannot seem to bring myself to request that you stop. It is more than I feel I deserve and…I appreciate it.”

“Oh yeah well your definition of what you deserve is wildly skewed.”

“Perhaps because I prefer to dwell on more pleasant things. Such as yourself.” Tobirama smiled in an oddly hesitant way but Madara only smiled back without questioning it, snorting a little with amusement.

“It’s been a long time since anyone called me pleasant,” he admitted.

“A travesty. You should be appreciated more often.”

Eyeing his companion a little sideways, Madara hummed. “If you are trying to sweet-talk me in to a change of topic it won’t work. I’m still determined to show you how very humanly stupid you are being. Although I’ve got to admit that a little flattery never hurts anything, you could stand to say a few more nice things to me.”

“My good friend, I could spend the rest of this day listing your better qualities without ever repeating myself.”

“Damn.” Removing one hand from his hip to scratch at the back of his head, Madara laughed. “You must plan to talk really, really slow then. I don’t have all that many good qualities.” It was all he could do not to leap in to the air and pump both fists with joy. Tobirama had called him a good friend. Considering him a good friend meant the other was forming new attachments and doing that meant that he was not so disconnected from his humanity as he thought. Madara couldn’t wait for the appropriate moment to turn around and shove that big step forward in the other’s face.

Underneath the calm mask of Tobirama’s twisted features Madara thought he saw a moment frustration but it was gone in the next instant so he dismissed it. He did have to admit that his responses probably sounded a little flippant and Izuna had always told him how annoying it was when he gave off an impression of not being invested in the conversation. If that was it he did feel a little bad. He was very invested. Other than Izuna’s health there was nothing more important in his life these days than helping Tobirama learn to see himself as human once again and not just because doing so would return to him his own freedom.

No, he wanted Tobirama to remember his own humanity because they were indeed friends now and he wanted his friend to remember, above all else, the feeling of happiness. His own brand of freedom. What could ever be more important than that?

“Well,” he broke the silence, ready to let the subject drop for now. “If you want to say more nice things to me then maybe we should go inside where it’s warm so I can feel my toes again.”

“Ah, my apologies. I sometimes forget about…”

“Feet?”

“Yes,” Tobirama agreed with shame coloring his tone. That simply wouldn’t do.

Madara headed for the door and tossed over his shoulder with a smile, “I think that’s one of the things where you got the better end of this deal. Do you know how much I would love to just never stub my toe again or never worry about cold feet when I go to bed?”

“How is it that you always manage to put a positive spin on everything?” Tobirama asked as they stepped out in to the snow. “You have more talent for it than even Hashirama.”

“Don’t tell him that, he’ll take it as a challenge.”

Another triumph in his favor, Tobirama cracked a smile. “If you wish to avoid his enthusiasm then perhaps you would consent to spending more time in my company. My days are always brightened by your presence. It would please me greatly to know more of you.”

“Not a bad idea,” Madara admitted.

“You approve?”

“Definitely. I mean, we already agreed that we should get to know each other and now we have; now we’re friends. It makes sense for us to spend time together.” Madara sent his companion a conspiratorial grin. “And if it gives me an excuse not to listen to Hashirama compose poetry for his wife then all the better.”

Once again a flash of frustration appeared on Tobirama’s face that he didn’t understand but Madara let this one go unmentioned as well. Questioning Tobirama’s unexplained miniature temper tantrums was probably just as dangerous as asking Hashirama why he was in such a good mood on any given day. Although he was willing to bet that Tobirama would not respond by launching himself in to lengthy poetic speeches that he would then have to tune out, for which Madara was grateful. Just imagining it was terrifying.

Trudging back through the snow was terrible when Madara's legs felt as though they might turn to jelly at any moment but it was made less terrible by Tobirama kindly walking ahead of him and widening the path they had made to come out here earlier. For all the conveniences of having the world reset every day this was one inconvenience he could have done without; it would have been nice to shovel himself a nice path to use but what was the point if it would only disappear? Wasted effort. And Madara wasn’t about to tire himself out for nothing when he already got all the exercise he needed during their sparring sessions.

After detouring towards the stables for Madara to be sure his old mare had enough hay and water they made it inside the castle and paused for him to peel off all the extra layers now soaked through with sweat and snow. Learning how to wield a gunbai involved an unsurprising amount of getting knocked on the ground. Hashirama found them as Madara was contemplating taking his shirt off as well and walking through the halls bare chested until he could go bathe.

Strangely, Hashirama did not have a cheerful greeting for them. Or any greeting at all.

“Have either of you encountered Mito recently?” he asked the moment he saw them. Both shook their heads and Tobirama reminded him that they had been outside for the last couple of hours as they usually were this time of day. “If you see her would you be so kind as to let her know I am looking for her?”

“Of course, brother,” Tobirama replied.

With that Hashirama was gone again, hopping off down the hallways at speeds that threatened to send him tripping over his own metal base. Madara tilted his head to one side.

“That’s weird.”

“I agree. He is not normally quite so abrupt.”

“Oh, yeah, that too. I just meant it’s weird because I don’t think I’ve ever seen Mito outside of the kitchens unless she’s with Hashirama.”

Tobirama looked down at him with brows furrowed in thought. “She was no great lady before she married my brother. I believe the kitchens give her comfort because she was raised there, a simple cook until she caught the crown prince’s eye.”

“Damn. I didn’t know that.”

“She would likely not wish for you to know.” His friend glanced at him sideways with a conspiratorial smile and Madara laughed. Without being told he never would have guessed that Mito had been raised as anything other than a proper lady in the royal courts. She certainly had acclimated well to such a massive promotion if her usual cool demeanor was anything to go by.

The anomaly was an easy one to put out of their minds, the two of them resuming the paths they had intended to take now that their training was done for the day. Tobirama walked with him until they reached the hallways that led towards the royal apartments. As they spent more and more time together Madara was slowly learning more and more things they agreed upon and one of those things was the necessity of bathing after such strenuous activity. Not many things struck him as more disgusting than the idea of going about the rest of his day reeking of sour armpits. He’d gotten enough of that stench from the patrons who frequented the tavern perhaps a little _too_ frequently and he had less than zero desire to be like those animals in any sort of way.

Izuna sat comfortably ensconced in the window seat when Madara entered the room, nose buried in a book and sock-covered feet tucked under his thighs where they were curled with anticipation. He always had loved a good adventure story. For a moment Madara couldn’t help but stop and stare, admiring the flush of color where there had once been tired and waxy skin, the shine coming back to long dark hair. His brother looked healthier now than he had in years and he continued to improve with every day that passed. It was amazing what access to actual medicine would do after years of being sold a shitty half-potent brew to keep him coming back as a repeat customer. If Madara ever saw that witch doctor again the idiot was going to come away from the encounter without all his vital body parts intact. That was a guarantee.

“Bath?” his brother asked distantly without looking up. It was incredibly annoying that he found it easy deciphering the twirling flowery script Madara could not, able to enjoy whatever book he wanted to from the library.

“Please tell me the water’s still hot,” he pleaded.

“Mn. Should be. I haven’t bothered to check.”

Madara grunted and stumped on through to the water closet. Even in the current times it was a rarity to find homes outside of the big towns that were built with indoor plumbing. The fact that this castle had such luxuries available was well worth the fact that to heat the water for his bath still required a small fire under the tub. It was better than hauling water in from the well as he’d had to do all his life. The tub was even make of copper with four clawed feet holding it up above the ground, much more comfortable than the squat wooden barrel Madara was used to crawling in to. 

To his absolute delight the small fire he stoked up before going outside had gone out not too long before, leaving his water a delicious burning temperature he was able to enjoy by submerging a towel before his body so he wouldn’t have to sit directly on the heated copper bottom. Sinking down in to the water was bliss upon his tired muscles and Madara was glad no one but Izuna was close enough to hear the shameful drawn out moan that echoed around the room in appreciation. There really was nothing like a good hot soak after a hard day’s work. And considering that his life had been fairly soft compared to others he felt he was only just beginning to appreciate things like this now after signing on to turn his muscles in to jelly six out of seven days a week.

Although he couldn’t say that he minded. In an odd way the soreness of his muscles felt good, felt like tangible proof of the progress he was making both in his own skill and in convincing Tobirama to see himself as human. The more time they spent together the more his friend seemed to be opening up and revealing new facets of his true self. For him to ask that they spend even more time together must be a breakthrough. Madara grinned smugly, sinking down to hide his expression under the surface of the water, and mentally gave himself a nice pat on the back. Obviously he was such a good friend that Tobirama wanted them to get even closer!

His intention was to soak just long enough that he could lift his arms without feeling like he wanted to scream but by the time he pulled himself out the water had gone cold and the shadows in the room were stretching out much longer than they should have been. Apparently time had slipped him by as he relaxed.

No longer half as sore as he had been, Madara was almost tempted to hum pleasantly as he dried himself off and dressed again in the clothes he’d left in the bathroom earlier, checking first to make sure Izuna hadn’t caught any mice to leave in his clothing again. It was wonderful to see his brother regain some energy but he could have done without the resurgence of the pranks they used to pull on each other when they were young. Once he was successfully covering in mice-free clothing Madara wrestling a brush through his hair until he was able to separate three portions to braid together. The gilded mirror hanging over the sink told him that he’d done a decent enough job, nothing fancy but better than the raggedy drowned look he usually sported walking around with wet hair.

On his way back through the bedroom he double checked the position of the sun through their window and wrinkled his nose. He might be a little late for dinner. Mito hated it when he was late. Hopefully she didn’t overcook anything in retaliation as she so often threatened to do to Tobirama when the man got too lost in his head to remember food.

“Coming?” he called, pausing at the door. Izuna’s face lifted from the book he’d been reading with a glassy eyed look which said he also hadn’t realized the time.

“Five more minutes?”

“And get yelled at by the lady of the house? Not a chance. If you’re not coming now then I’ll bring you up a plate later.”

He watched Izuna wrestle with indecision before finally sighing and setting the book aside, unfolding his legs to stand then pausing to stretch. By the time he finally made it over to the door Madara was tapping one foot impatiently.

“On your own time,” he insisted with heavy tones of sarcasm. Izuna stuck out his tongue.

Together they wandered through the hallways towards the lower floors where Mito should be whipping up her latest delicacy, Izuna patiently listening to his big brother recounting an afternoon of training that probably sounded pretty identical to al his other stories about training. When he could get a word in edgewise he immediately derailed the conversation to talk about the rich fantasy world he’d been reading about and that was just as interesting so Madara decided against scolding him for being so rude. It was always a pleasure to see him so invested, so vibrant.

Instead of the usually cheery voice hailing them as soon as they walked in to the room, however, both of the Uchiha brothers were surprised to find the kitchens empty but for little Kagami dangling from an oven handle and struggling valiantly to open the massive door with his tiny wooden weight. Madara leapt across the room to rescue him, setting the toy soldier on the countertop instead with his heart racing in his chest.

“What on earth do you think you’re doing?” he demanded. “Do you know what the ovens could do to you? What if you caught fire!”

“I did not want for you to go hungry, I was only trying to cook dinner!” Kagami scuffed one foot in to the counter while Madara and Izuna traded looks of confusion.

“Mito cooks,” Izuna pointed out.

“Exactly. Which begs the question again, what do you think you’re doing?” Crossing his arms, Madara lifted one eyebrow in his best impression of a disappointed Tobirama. Nothing got this boy talking than the idea that he had somehow disappointed his idol.

Just as predicted, Kagami pouted. Then he defied expectations by perking up and shaking his head with some measure of authority. “Mito-hime is not here. Hashirama-sama went to find her; he sounded very worried that she was not preparing so I thought to cheer everyone up by doing so myself! Then Hashirama-sama would not have to worry and you would not have to go on with empty bellies!”

For a few moments the two of them stared down at the boy in search of any hints that he wasn’t telling the whole truth. It was a futile effort, though. Kagami was almost more honest than Hashirama and he had no reason to lie to them. Eventually Madara scooped him back up and carefully transferred his small body away from the work station, depositing him in Izuna’s outstretched hands with a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. He really was glad they had taken such a shine to each other.

“You forget that we’ve lived alone for years; I can cook for myself just fine. It might not be quite up to the standards Tobirama is used to eating but I’m sure he’ll manage to choke it down.”

“It is weird that Mito’s not here with dinner waiting though,” Izuna chipped in, already seating himself on a nearby stool.

Madara hummed with his head shoved inside the closest pantry door. “I agree, it’s not like her. Hashirama will find her though. She’s probably just off distracted with a book or something like you were before I dragged you down. Everything’s fine.”

He didn’t need to look to feel the weight of Izuna’s eyes on him, to read the silence for what it was. Kagami happily began to chatter about something inconsequential and they let him. That was, after all, the point of pretending that everything was normal. Neither of them wanted to upset the poor boy until they knew for sure that anything was amiss.

But his brother had hit the nail on the head. It was very strange for Mito not to be here in the kitchen with dinner ready, stranger still that she would pass up on an opportunity to scold them for deviating from the schedule she had set for their meals. Whether because of her modest upbringing or a need to prove herself worthy in her new station Mito was a woman who thrived on order, everything where it was supposed to be and always at the right time. It might have been possible that she really had simply fallen victim to distraction as he suggested and that she might come flying in to the kitchen with tight-lipped apologies to scold him for using the wrong frying pan.

Or – Madara's fingers tightened around the onion he held between his palms – it was possible that his gut was right and something was very wrong. They wouldn’t know until Hashirama found his wife.


	8. Chapter 8

If you had asked him even yesterday Madara would probably have said that he never expected to find out what a sleepy tessen fan looked like. Sure he knew that even as inanimate objects his fellow residents here at the castle did need to sleep but they did so in the royal apartments, one of the few areas he still had yet to go back in to. And besides that the only living tessen fan he knew was Mito and she was a woman who clung to her poise at every minute of every hour. Seeing her sleepy, in his mind at least, would be like seeing Tobirama sit in the middle of the floor to start crying.

Yet there she was floating in to the room with her painted eyes half-lidded and her thin lips opened for a yawn while Hashirama flustered along the ground beneath her. Behind them Tobirama slinked in as best he could with cloven hooves in place of feet.

“Why does Hashirama look so panicked?” Madara asked him quietly. He was fairly sure he already knew the answer and though he hoped it wasn’t true those hopes were dashed by the sad red eyes turning away from him.

“He fears for his wife. She is…not well.”

“You mean she’s sick?” It said a lot that his tone was almost hopeful but again he was disappointed.

“No, she is not ill. She is tired. It has come as a shock to both of us.” Tobirama fell in to stillness and closed his eyes, visibly attempting to rein in his emotions, and Madara couldn’t blame him. He hated that his guess was right. This was the last thing he wanted for any of the friends he’d made here.

Keeping a weather eye on her floating form as she took over the cooking, he allowed himself to be shooed away to go sit on Tobirama’s other side. “She’ll be okay though, right? I see her every day and she’s never shown any sort of…tiredness.”

It took his companion a while to answer. In that time Madara watched as Mito sent her husband apologetic yet muted smiles to which he responded by attempting to wring his hands together. Even the way she drifted through the air seemed almost listless, weaving side to side rather than her usual straight lines, movements sluggish where normally she zipped from place to place with an effortless decorum. How a fan managed to affect decorum he couldn’t say but it was one word that always came to mind whenever he watched her working.

“Her pain was kept well hidden from us all until today,” Tobirama murmured eventually. He couldn’t seem to look at anything but the floor, each word a low rumble so as not to drift across the room. “She is tired, as are we all, but I did not realize she had given up on hope after all this time. Of us all she has always seemed the strongest. Now she feels that with you and your brother here she need not worry for her husband and she has lost the strength to keep herself awake. It won’t be long.”

“Until?”

“She will fall asleep,” was the simple, heartbreaking answer.

Madara didn’t need more than that to understand. She would fall asleep as so many others had and become nothing more than another object in the cavernous halls to sit still and collect dust. Just thinking about how devastated Hashirama would be by her loss made him shudder and push the image from his mind, snagging Tobirama by one wrist and turning to pull him from the room without warning.

“You are _not _responsible for this,” he hissed the moment they were alone in the hallway. When Tobirama flinched he knew he had hit the mark.

“It is I that keeps them all trapped in this–”

“No, it’s that crazy witch lady who trapped you all here. Maybe they don’t quite agree with how you feel but not one of them blames you for it.” He nearly growled with frustration to see the other wrinkle his brow with disagreement.

Still not lifting his eyes from the floor, Tobirama ran a hand through his wild hair, stopping when his fingers ran in to one of the horns growing out the top of his head. He paused to trace the ridges with disgust shadowing his face. “If I were a stronger man I would have freed them from this hell decades ago. If I were still a man at all.”

Disgust turned to shock when Madara punched him square in the chest. With the sheer size of his current form the blow did very little but it was enough to break him from his thoughts and force his gaze up to see that Madara was angry. Not truly angry in the sense that he was offended in any way but there was certainly a good heavy irritation building up inside him after going over the same words again and again with no progress. Utterly done with having to repeat himself, Madara reached up and snagged a fistful of the man’s collar to pull him down so their faces were of a level, staunchly ignoring the fact that he only succeeded because Tobirama followed the motion probably out of pure disbelief.

“I’m gonna say this again and you’re gonna clean the shit out of your ears and listen this time,” he growled. “You _are_ a man. And a damn good one. You can have all the pity parties and magic tricks you like and that won’t change anything. You’re a human with human feelings and just because they hurt doesn’t mean you get to run away from them!”

“Madara…”

“No! Shut up! You think I didn’t feel like a monster when I figured out our parents abandoned us? You think I didn’t feel like an unwanted burden not good enough even for the people who made me? Well I got over it! And you’re just going to have to get over this!”

“It is not as easy as–”

With a snarl Madara cut him off again. “You might not think so but it really is! You have had a hundred damned years to wallow in your little pity party but it needs to stop! You think you did a terrible inhumane thing. Fine. So make up for it! Atone! It if makes you feel better you can abdicate the throne and run away to live the harrowing life of a peasant. I know a stable you can help me muck out. But for the love of all the gods just- would a _monster_ feel the guilt that you do!?”

Tobirama had no answer. He seemed a little too busy gaping with his jaw hanging loose and from this close Madara couldn’t help but note that it was a startlingly adorable expression on him. Actually there were several things he had the chance to notice now. With the height different between them he’d never seen Tobirama’s face in such detail but from merely an inch or so away he could see the exact garnet red shade of his eyes, the soft almost peachy pink of his lips and the frown lines around them. Twisted his features might have been but there were enough hints towards the handsomeness his true self would wear that Madara very nearly blushed.

Since he was still more angry than anything else he did no such thing. He did let go of the clothing in his grasp, awkwardly smoothing it out in apology when Tobirama failed to straighten right away.

“You’re so caught up in what you see in the mirror,” he continued, “that you can’t see what’s actually on the inside. If you looked at yourself like I do you wouldn’t see a monster.”

“Peace,” Tobirama breathed, holding up both hands in surrender.

“Oh believe me, I’m feeling mighty peaceful right now.”

His companion let out a single humorless puff of laughter. “Indeed. Madara…the way you speak of me is…I am glad you came in to our lives. I’m glad to have known you. The things you say mean more than I can express and I don’t think I could ever repay you for the kindness you have shown me.”

“It’s not kindness, its basic human decency.” Madara sniffed haughtily.

“There are many who would not offer even that. I…”

Seeing Tobirama hesitate was odd, enough so that Madara felt almost obligated to put him out of his misery. The man needed to hear these things but every time he tried to bring them up he found himself incredibly weak to the flash of vulnerability that followed his words. Confident that Tobirama would think on what he said, he awkwardly patted one massive arm and cleared his throat.

“It’s fine. I’m sorry I yelled, you’re obviously already stressed about the situation.”

“No need to apologize, you were in the right to stop me from spiraling in to a darkness that would help no one. That is not what I had intended to address however. I wished to tell you, ah, how I feel.”

“God, please, no.” Madara retracted his hand to slap it over both eyes. “Don’t get touchy feely on me, I’ll break out in to hives.”

“Oh.”

When he peeked Tobirama looked so downcast it sent a wave of guilt burning through his gut and Madara hurried to balm the wound he’d just made. “We’re friends and I know you appreciate me, I swear I do. I just, ugh. You don’t need to compose sonnets or anything about it okay? I’d burn up from embarrassment.”

“Friends, yes.”

“Right.”

After staring at him for a long time with an expression he couldn’t quite decipher Tobirama took a deep breath and let it out slowly before indicating the door back in to the kitchen. “Shall we rejoin the others?”

“Are you alright to go back in?”

“Yes, I should attend to my brother and his wife. It is only proper that I offer what comforts I can.” His words were stiff with what Madara could only assume to be some embarrassment of his own. That was understandable. Madara himself didn’t deal very well with the shameful disaster that was expressing himself so he could hardly blame anyone else for the same struggle.

The kitchen, when they entered, was filled with silent tension that even Kagami seemed unwilling to break. Madara would be tempted to check the boy’s temperature if he thought wooden soldiers could have a temperature. Did their animated chattel bodies have any physiological human characteristics? Something to ask about. At the moment he kept his focus on the way Hashirama had settled himself on the edge of the kitchen counter with the stubborn expression of a watchdog. If he still possessed muscles and feet Madara could only imagine they could have been spread to set himself in an unmovable stance much like young village lads playing tackle ball games in the fields.

It was easy to understand his concern but it was also quite easy to see the tightness of Mito’s illustrated lips. She looked much more alert now, thankfully, and did not seem to appreciate her husband’s stubborn hovering. Knowing that increasing the tension would not do anyone any good Madara stumped over and unceremoniously scooped a protesting Hashirama up, carrying him along to find a seat where he usually did.

“Madara, my good man, I must insist you return me to my station!”

“Your station is off to one side admiring her ‘pretty folds’ and completely missing the dirty implications of your own words.” He gave his friend an unimpressed look and poked him until he fell down on his backside. On the other side of the table Tobirama held one hand up to cover a weak smile.

“I would never make lewd observations in public!”

“That you know about,” Madara grunted.

He accepted the smile Mito gifted him when she brought his salvaged breakfast as the gratitude it was meant to be and said nothing further, listening with only one ear as Hashirama went off on some rant about respecting the fairer sex and maintaining decorum. Anyone who skidded around corners so fast they crashed in to walls on a weekly basis had no room for lecturing about decorum.

Breakfast was delicious, though for once he neglected to say so. No way was he admitting that Mito’s cooking really was that much better than his own. Izuna, on the other hand, had no qualms about loudly declaring how glad he was to avoid eating his big brother’s cooking again after so long without. The comparisons he made were less than flattering despite years of his compliments for the chef. Madara made sure to give him a hefty swat on the back of his head on the way to wash his dishes in the sink. No matter how many times they assured him that none of the dishware they used had ever been a reanimated human he simply couldn’t bring himself to leave them dirty.

Just in case.

The possibility of Mito’s declining mental state seemed like a family matter so Madara was well prepared to drag his brother away once they had both taken care of their dishes and probably lock themselves away for some quality time of their own. He was more than a little startled to have Hashirama invite them to join the castle residents for the day, spending time together as one big happy group. A rarity and an honor. Madara accepted the invitation easily and, with Izuna trailing along behind curiously, he walked next to Tobirama in companionable silence as they all made their way up a floor to gather in a lovely sunroom he’d never seen before, darker now as the afternoon faded but the fire Hashirama lit gave off enough light to admire rich furniture and tasteful décor. 

Since half of their little gathering didn’t exactly take up much space the three of them without any bulk all settled on a low table centered in the middle of the seating area, Izuna carefully draping himself over a massive armchair while Madara settled next to Tobirama on a small couch. Considering how much furniture there was about they didn’t really have to sit together but it felt ridiculous to have all three of them with bodies spread out when it would be much easier to converse if they were all closer. And if he happened to enjoy the rather pleasant scent of sandalwood coming off of his friend then that was for him to know and hopefully no one else to find out. It was his own business if he made sure to angle his body to lean a bit more towards the opposite side of the couch where every shift and movement of Tobirama’s body sent another waft of pleasant aromas through the air. His friend must have bathed before dinner as well.

For the most part conversation stayed light as everyone tried to keep their mind off of the way Mito wasn’t quite as interactive as she might normally have been. While she could never be described as exuberant neither was she the type to withhold her opinion if she had one but today she offered very little, resting quietly on the tabletop and looking as though she would dearly have loved to fold up her ribs and rest.

Hating the guilt that shadowed Tobirama’s face every time he so much as glanced in her direction, Madara did what he could to keep the conversation going between them even when the rest of the group branched off on to other topics. Distraction was not allowed. If he had to be the center of Tobirama’s focus for the rest of the day he would even if he didn’t see himself as all that interesting. Luckily for him it was never very hard to keep the other’s attention.

“You never ride them?” Tobirama asked after listening with a muddled frown to a description of how Madara spent most of his days back home.

“No, they’re not mine.”

“But you are caring for them, do you not take them out for exercise in a yard or field?”

Madara lifted one eyebrow. “It’s an inn tavern, you sheltered noble. I just watch them while their owners get drunk and then I have to let them go again to carry the sodden asses back home.”

“Well that strikes me as incredibly dangerous. One should never travel whilst inebriated.”

“Have you ever _been_ inebriated?”

“Such things are unseemly,” Tobirama sniffed. When his eyes opened again it was to peek and make sure his brother wasn’t listening. “However I must admit that, yes, I have experienced it and did not understand the attraction. The devils of drink were always more Hashirama's vice, not mine.”

“Weak stomach?” Madara nodded sagely.

He delighted in the bitchy look that earned him. For a king Tobirama had some excellent bitch faces.

“I will have you know that my constitution is far above average.”

“Oh so you’re an expensive drunk then. I can get that. Didn’t want to waste the money it takes to get you plastered?”

Tobirama’s face pinched even tighter. “For your information I was indeed in charge of the royal coffers and not once was it ever a concern whether or not I was spending too much on such frivolities as alcohol! I have some decorum!” He paused to visibly compose himself, then added in a flippant tone, “Unlike some others here.”

It took effort to clamp his teeth down on the gleeful snicker that wanted to escape.

“You trying to say something?” Madara demanded instead, valiantly holding in his laughter.

“Why, I would never raise such implications against your person – unless you deserved it of course. Should I direct my inquiries to your sibling?” Tobirama cast his gaze across the room to where Izuna had kicked his feet over one arm of the chair and tossed his head back against the other arm with raucous laughter. He smirked openly when Madara scrambled to wave both hands forbiddingly without drawing too much attention to them.

“Don’t you dare!” he hissed.

Tobirama hummed and settled back in to his seat a little more firmly, a silent declaration that he would have mercy this time. “Perhaps it is best I determine my answers from the source, as it were. I don’t suppose you would care to join me for a nightcap?”

“Eh?” Spinning his head around to check the window, Madara frowned. “It’s not really night yet.” When he looked back Tobirama was giving him a look that said he had definitely missed something, though he had no guesses what that something might be. A nightcap was supposed to be a drink at the end of the night as far as he knew. Something to end your day with. He was pretty sure. It was one of those words that no one down at his end of the social totem pole ever used.

“You interpret the word too literally. I meant only to invite you to my room for a drink.”

“What, trying to get me drunk? Is that your way of throwing a challenge?”

“Ah, if you choose to see it as one.” Tobirama shook his head as if disagreeing with himself but before Madara could question it he affected a smile and added, “Any time with you is time well spent. Even if you do insist on hearing only the spaces between whatever meaning I am attempting to convey.”

Madara gave him a funny look, to which Tobirama lifted one eyebrow, a challenge asking him to refute such claims. He really wished he could but as much as he always enjoyed a good argument he really wasn’t clear on what he was arguing against. It felt like lately he was always missing something whenever he spoke with Tobirama – which was pretty much every day. The more time they spent together the closer they became and the cycle could only wind inwards infinitely. But if sharing a drink at the end of the day was what he wanted then Madara certainly wasn’t going to say no. It wasn’t often he got to enjoy a mug or two, not usually able to afford it, and when he did it was almost always the swill at the end of the barrel after the innkeeper finished serving his ‘more important’ guests.

Plan in mind and determined not to make a drunken fool of himself too easily, Madara gave his companion a friendly shove before lifting his head to respond when Izuna called him from across the seating area. He was easily drawn in to a debate over whether the cloth produced by a spinning jenny could really be the same quality as one produced by a team of workers spinning by hand. Sometimes it was easy to forget just how far behind the times these folks were and how little they knew of the world’s latest technologies.

The silly debate ended with Hashirama demanding that Izuna craft a spinning jenny for him to try for himself, to which Izuna responded by nearly falling off his chair with laughter and holding out both soft-palmed hands.

“You think I’m the worker of the household? I’m an invalid, your highness, I haven’t done much more than simple house chores since I was a boy.” He seemed quite pleased with his excuse too. Madara grumbled just loud enough to get his point across the room but his brother ignored him. “Even if I was I wouldn’t know how to make one for myself.”

“Oh. I rather thought…hm.” Hashirama didn’t seem to know what to do with himself, a little consternated, a little confused.

“Thought what?”

“It was my thought that if one understood how to use it then surely one must understand how to construct it.”

Madara relaxed from where he’d been about to burst in to laughter in case Hashirama made some dumbass comment about the entire working class sharing skills. That was just the sort of empty-headed assumptions he was used to hearing from nobles but he should have known to expect better of his friend. Not that the assumption he did end up making was all that much smarter.

“The improvements he has made continue to impress me,” Tobirama said quietly and Madara didn’t have to follow his gaze to know he was watching Izuna.

“No kidding. Thank you again. For helping.”

“You need not thank me.”

“I do need to. You can’t know…well I guess you can know what it’s like to lose a brother. We already had to bury the rest of our siblings but I don’t have to bury him and that’s thanks to you. I owe you everything.” His cheeks were burning by the time he’d finished saying his piece and Madara considered giving Tobirama another shove to bring the mood of their conversation back out of the seriousness he’d just dove down in to.

Thankfully Tobirama seemed to recognize what he needed. “If you absolutely must pay recompense then I shall consider your acceptance of my offer for a nightcap as such. Mayhap I truly will get you – ah, what was the term you used? – plastered.”

Madara roared with mirth to hear such a colloquial term from the fanciest idiot he’d ever met. His laughter caught the attention of Hashirama, who he then had to explain to what it meant to get plastered. The conversation turned then to include the entire group as they all traded embarrassing stories about each other under the influence of alcohol or other accidentally ingested substances. Most of the latter were stories about Tobirama stumbling out of his laboratory to report on unknown reactions with new chemicals. Madara liked those ones, although he didn’t appreciate Izuna’s lurid descriptions of the few times he had stumbled home from the inn after being allowed the dregs of his so-called betters. The one story about Mito and her bloomers, on the other hand, he found particularly amusing.

Even more amusing was seeing the stars in little Kagami’s eyes and watching Hashirama awkwardly try to talk him out of the idea that he too wanted a good drinking story when he was finally able to grow old enough. High moral values were difficult to impart with Izuna egging the poor boy on from the sidelines.

Such antics eventually led to the end of their evening all together, Mito shaking the stupor away long enough to scold her husband for encouraging Kagami towards such raunchy behaviors and refusing to hear anything about him being the only one trying to protect the child. When she expressed her fatigue Hashirama's face fell in response. In an instant he was up and fussing around, encouraging her to bed and bidding the rest of them a good night. After watching them go Izuna’s mood seemed to have dimmed as well. Before long he was scooping up Kagami and trotting off with the toy soldier in tow, murmuring together like co-conspirators on their way out. Madara wondered if his brother planned to let the boy sleep in his bed for the night and what might happen if Izuna rolled over in his dreams. He would need to stay alert for screaming.

“It seems we have been abandoned,” Tobirama observed to the otherwise empty room.

“Time for that drinking contest you were calling for?”

“Have a bit of class, I pray.” Sticking his nose in the air, his friend affected the snootiest expression he’d ever seen, clearly exaggerated for comic effect. “To waste such fine sake on something as crude as a contest to see which of us may imbibe more! Heavens forbid.”

“Oh quit being such a ponce!” Madara told him.

Watching Tobirama preen to have amused him with a good joke was hilarious, though he opted not to say anything. Embarrassing the man could only end in having any offers of alcohol revoked and Madara found that he was quite in the mood for a few drinks. Magnanimously choosing to be merciful, he instead waved for his friend to lead the way and followed with giddy anticipation, curious to finally have his first proper look around the royal apartments. He knew someone of Tobirama’s station probably had an entire set of rooms to himself so they were most likely just moving to a different type of sitting room but he could guess that it was still quite an honor.

As they shut the door of the sunroom and set off down the hall he turned to his friend with a curious expression. “Wait, we’re drinking sake? That’s supposed to be rice wine right?”

“Indeed it is. Have you never had the pleasure?”

“No. Usually all I have is whatever beer gets leftover in people’s mugs at the end of the night. Already paid for, you know? The innkeeper would never give me anything for free and I don’t usually have the money to spare for being choosy.” He shrugged because that was the way of things in his life and there was little point in getting all riled up about it.

Turning a corner brought them past a window, light from the rising moon flickering across the deep creases between Tobirama’s brows where he had pulled them in to a frown. “How very uncharitable of him. You deserve much better than the leftovers of men who could never hope to be your equal.”

“Damn, back at it with the flattery.” Madara tossed his hair over one shoulder. He noted the way Tobirama’s gaze followed the motion though he didn’t think much of it since the man was probably just wondering what it would be like to have so much hair thick and heavy on his own head. A lot of people asked questions about his hair. Not many of them were very happy with the honest answer that he had grown it out mostly by accident at first and then because he was stubborn in the face of so many people telling him to cut it. Apparently he needed to have some kind of important motivation or something to make it understandable.

“Would you have me be unflattering?” A few beats too late Tobirama finally replied.

“Can you be?” he asked skeptically. “You’re not too much of a prissy royal to mince words with a commoner like me?” The grin he threw was more of a challenge than if he’d tossed a gauntlet on the floor between them and words could not express how thrilled he was when the other took that challenge.

Drawing himself up even as he drew the tapestry out of their way to invite Madara in to the royal apartments, Tobirama affected a mocking glare. “You look death’s head upon a mop stick you foppish, cow-handed gasser. Do you think me uneducated in the lower speech?”

The only response Madara had to that was to throw his head back and wheeze for air, shamelessly holding on to the other’s arm to keep himself upright. Never in his life had he heard something so nonsensical yet delivered with such unadulterated bitchiness. Something told him that none of those insults were in any way related to each other but relevancy was hard to focus on when he could barely think passed how utterly ridiculous it all sounded. Old timey insults were hilarious. Hearing them out of Tobirama’s mouth only made them so much better.

It wasn’t much farther to where they were going but they spent the rest of their walk trading insults that only grew more and more absurd as they went. By the time they stumbled in to a lavish sitting room they were ready to fall over in a dual fit of the giggles, although Tobirama somehow managed to retain a small bit of decorum even in this. Madara was starting to think he would have to challenge the idiot to a mud wrestling competition or something just to see him act entirely like a normal person.

“Right!” he declared as soon as he’d caught enough breath back to form words. “Where’s this sake you were talking about? I’d love to wake up tomorrow and whine about a hangover.”

“If you disrespect my vintage so I may be tempted to defenestrate you.” Tobirama lifted one eyebrow warningly.

While Madara tried to work his way through whatever ‘defenestrate’ was supposed to mean Tobirama stepped over to a side table and removed a small set very similar to something the innkeeper had brought out only once when a military captain happened to pass through their small village and demanded the finest services the poor could offer. Madara hadn’t liked him much but he could remember being very curious of whatever clear booze had been poured for him.

The set of dishes laid out before him was a hundred times fancier than the one at the inn, he could tell that at a single glance. Black lacquered porcelain with fine gold filigree forming what he could only assume was a house crest on each, a matching decanter and a tray with gold trim to carry it all, it probably cost more than the collective entirety of Madara's possessions both here and in the village. He kept his hands carefully by his sides at he leaned closer to admire the craftsmanship of each piece. But when he sat back and looked up he noticed Tobirama watching him expectantly.

“In this weather there is little need for the sake to be chilled elsewhere, as luck would have it.” His tone was casual, if a little impatient. Madara nodded slowly.

“Didn’t know it needed to be cold.”

“Some are served chilled, others served hot. This here is perhaps my favorite. I’m glad of the opportunity to share it with you.”

More curious than ever, all Madara could do was nod again. “Cool. Share as you like.”

A long pause stretched out for what felt like forever in which neither of them moved and he tried to figure out why Tobirama had offered the sake but wasn’t actually moving to serve it. It took a couple minutes before finally the man rolled his eyes with all the drama his brother usually managed and carefully stepped over to fiddle at the delicate ceramic with his thick clawed hands.

“What?” Madara demanded. “You’re looking at me like I’ve done something wrong. I’m just sitting here!”

“Precisely. When sharing a drink one is expected to pour for one’s betters.”

“Ooh, you saying you’re better than me?”

“I never said such a thing.” The serene tone of his voice was a dead giveaway but Madara refused to laugh just yet, clinging to his pretended offense.

With arms crossed he stuck his nose in the air and declared, “You inferred it!”

“One implies. It is up to the recipient to infer, though what inferences you make are surely beyond my control. Heavens forbid I ever claim to understand how a mind such as yours might work.” Tobirama, unfortunately, was much better at playing snooty. No doubt a lifetime of practice was no blame.

“I want to say you just _implied_ that I have a crazy mind but I can’t quite parse it out because you always talk so damn fancy!”

That finally broke his friend. A smile cracked Tobirama’s stern expression and Madara pumped both fists in the air with triumph, eliciting a low chuckle. “Pour the drink, you hooligan, before I am lowered to doing so myself.”

“Now that’s something for the heavens to forbid or whatever.”

Since he had already won Madara figured it wasn’t losing in any way to let himself smile as well as he snatched up the chilly decanter and poured them each a dish of the clear liquid he had only seen once before. Being made of rice he would have thought their little farming village could make this stuff in abundance but for the fact that all of their rice went to paying taxes and supporting the lord of the closest town since technically he owned their land.

Actually, he realized, even more technically Tobirama probably owned the land, though likely no one remembered that.

Clinking their glasses together was a much more delicate affair with such small dishes than he usually witnessed in the rowdy tavern and despite his care Tobirama still rolled those pretty red eyes like he’d done something country bumpkin again. Madara ignored him, tossing back the drink in one mouthful. His abilities had been questioned and he was determined to make a good showing of himself.

Of course, because that was just his luck, he was spluttering and coughing in the next instant as the rice wine burned his throat and his eyes began to water, one fist coming up to pound his chest as though he could beat the sensation back out of himself.

“That stuff has a kick!” he wheezed, much to Tobirama’s obvious amusement.

“It would not have affected you half so much if you were not such a boor as to pour it down your gullet like goat’s milk. Fine sake is meant to be appreciated, not guzzled.”

“A little warning would have been nice!”

“Had I given you warning,” Tobirama murmured, “that would not have been so funny.”

Madara opened his mouth to retort and cut himself off with another coughing fit. He wanted to be annoyed but he also had to admit that he would have done the exact same thing if their positions were reversed. In light of that he grunted and pounded his sternum a few more times without saying anything. He could almost breathe again by the time Tobirama settled next to him on the couch with delicate movements, ever so careful not to spill a drop of his own drink.

A quick look around told him that they didn’t necessarily need to sit right next to each other. Just like the sunroom, there was plenty of furniture here and they would have able to hear each other just fine from different seats. Madara neglected to say anything. Sitting together like this gave the room a much more casual and intimate air so it felt less like dining with the king and more like drinking with a friend. He wondered if that was Tobirama’s intention but didn’t ask, content with the mystery. Instead he reached to pour himself another cup and listened to his friend go off on a lecture about how it was polite to offer one’s companions a refill when one wanted some for themselves.

Several cups later he had convinced Tobirama to give up on the idea of proper manners but he had also somehow managed to lay sideways on the couch with his legs tossed over the arm and his head pillowed against one of his friend’s thighs. Every time Tobirama looked down he began mumbling about propriety again, which for some reason struck Madara as the funniest thing. He kept imagining some highborn lady walking in on them and fainting to see them being so familiar with each other. A few times he imagined Hashirama doing it and that was even better.

“I don’t think I can get up,” he confessed after struggling to reach for the sake yet again and failing to even reach the table. “Might have to just pass out right here.”

“Scandalous,” Tobirama murmured, though it really didn’t sound like an objection.

“You look like you’re gonna pass out too,” Madara noted. He giggled under the squinting eyes that tried to glare him down yet only managed to focus somewhat to the right of where his head actually lay.

“I will have you know that I am per-fen-ec-tally fine.”

Neither of them spoke for a moment while Madara tried to work his way through that.

“What?”

“I’ll not be repeating myself. I am not sure that I could, in fact, as memory seems to have abandoned me. What were we talking about?” Tobirama raised his head again only to drop it back against the couch where one could only assume he was watching the ceiling spin in circles. At least, that’s what Madara was doing.

Wriggling a bit until he’d found a more comfortable position, Madara closed his eyes to block out the world. “I think we were going to sleep.”

“No. No! I had something I wished to discuss with you! Something of utmost importance!”

“Can it wait until we’ve slept?”

“I…yes, alright.” The sheer defeat in Tobirama’s voice in addition to the bone-melting exhaustion of both their bodies was enough to have Madara giggling again, albeit very weakly. Now that he’d said he was tired it was like sleep had grown claws and sunk them in deep, pulling, pulling him down when he was too weak to resist.

Humming pleasantly, turning his face to burrow against the warmth pillowing his head, Madara gave a few sleepy mumbles that might have been translated in some languages as a sort of goodnight. Tobirama mumbled something back but sleep must have gotten its claws in to him too and they were both fading fast. Whatever he said was lost to the ceiling and the uncaring shadows that cradled them deeper in to the night.

A moment later the room was silent but for the even breaths of two men prepared to regret their choice of pastimes come morning.


	9. Chapter 9

Waking up the next morning without a hangover probably ranked in the top ten surprises of Madara’s life. The good ones, even. Either he’d found some water to drink that he didn’t remember or something about the reset magic had saved their sorry hides from suffering through the usual aftereffects of excess. Whichever it was Madara was hardly going to question his good fortune.

He was, however, going to question how he had fallen asleep with his head in Tobirama’s lap. As funny as it was to see his friend’s massive form sprawled out and bent backwards over the couch it was probably best to get up before they embarrassed each other with their equal amounts of awkwardness. Just look at him go. Definitely getting up. Madara glared up at the ceiling with great offense as though it had anything to do with his lack of motivation to move, determined not to admit that he was just very comfortable with zero desire to ruin that. He knew the man under him was going to lose his mind when he woke. It would be best to at least find a less compromising position before that happened. Yet still he continued to lay there battling against the urge to roll over and burrow his face in to Tobirama’s belly for another hour or so of shut eye.

It was a little weird to think of anyone outside of his family in such a familiar way but Madara passed over that without giving it much thought. He’d gotten to know everyone here at the castle quite well over the past several months, it was really no surprise that he would grow close to them in the same way he was close to Izuna, the sort of camaraderie that meant he would feel comfortable relying on them in a time of need, the sort of bond that meant he would sacrifice a part of himself if it would let them be happy.

A lot of thinking just to rationalize his inability to get up.

Madara was still pondering all the many excuses he could come up with when finally he was treated to the sight of the ever-proper King of this establishment jerking his head upright with a graceless snort and gazing around the room with bleary eyes that spoke of a very deep slumber. From the slightly dopey look on his face it seemed like he must have been having quite a nice dream before the waking world reeled him back in without warning. Heart suddenly racing in his chest, Madara kept as still as possible, almost as though he thought perhaps he could go unnoticed if he simply didn’t draw attention to himself. Whatever half-baked plans his lazily befuddled mind had come up with were dashed when Tobirama looked down. Both of them froze as their eyes met, somehow equally astonished.

“G’morning,” was all Madara could think to say.

“I…yes. A good morning indeed. Have you any recall as to how this came to be?”

“No but I hear I’m a cuddly drunk.”

For whatever reason that seemed to disappoint his host. Maybe he was hoping for a more ostentatious story of grand adventure ending with collapsing against each other on the couch. Actually that sounded much better, Madara wished he’d thought up a story like that to tell.

“Most fortuitous that you are here. I remember little of last night myself; however, I do recall that I wished to make a confession to you which I did not have a chance for. Surely if I had spoken my piece we would both recall.”

“Sure. Makes sense.” He paused for an unnecessarily drawn out moment. “Should I get up?”

He felt a little vindicated when Tobirama seemed reluctant to insist on that but after a moment of indecision he agreed it would be best. It wasn’t quite the lecture on propriety he’d been expecting but that was alright, he’d already enjoyed a humorous first reaction and that had been everything he was hoping for. When he sat up his back cracked in several areas and he had to stand up completely in order for everything to pop back in to the right place. As he did he could feel Tobirama watching him but mostly chalked it up to the fact that he was really the only thing in the room to look at. These were, after all, the same set of apartments that Tobirama had been locking himself in to for several decades. His gaze probably slid right over the contents now no matter how lavish they were to Madara's eyes.

Once his body no longer felt like an accordion in need of a good stretch he flopped back down on to his corner of the couch and gave his companion a winning smile.

“You needed to talk to me about something?

“Something very important which I feel may affect many things–”

Before he could ever finish his sentence it was interrupted when the door flew open across the room. Tobirama’s first reaction was to swing his head around and glare in that direction but the expression quickly melted away to become worry as he caught sight of Hashirama, his carven metal face devastated.

“What is it?” Tobirama demanded, already halfway off the couch.

“It is Mito! She will not wake! Help me, brother! Please!”

“No…” The sheer amount of heartbreak packed in to that one word whispered under his breath in protest of something he could not stop was, without contest, the saddest thing Madara had ever witnessed in his life.

Hashirama led them as they hurried from the room and down the hall in to another. In better circumstances Madara might have taken the time to inspect what the bedroom of an intended king looked like but at the moment none of that existed, the décor around him as likely to be trash as it was to be treasure for all the attention he paid it. His eyes were only for the still shape in the center of the massive bed.

Gently resting atop the covers she had doubtlessly once slumbered beneath, the ribs of Mito’s fan were open to reveal her face so still and stiff. With her painted eyes closed and mouth caught in a slack neutral shape she looked identical to the portrait Madara could remember being shown just outside the kitchen. Their cousin, he recalled. A woman of renowned strength whose fall in to the long sleep had surprised all of them; now Mito had followed in her footsteps and the loss of her was like a knife in the gut. Madara could only think to be grateful that Kagami was not here at the moment and to wonder who would have the displeasure of breaking this terrible news to the boy.

Movements careful, eyes filled with a deep sorrow, Tobirama approached the bed and traced the edges of his sister-in-law’s inanimate form with one finger, calling her name softly. When she did not stir he slid both hands underneath to lift her up and turned to sit on the mattress, whispering things she could not hear from the land of dreams. Hashirama clamored up on to the bed and began to pat insistently at his arm, asking over and over whether there was anything he could do, and with every word Tobirama’s body grew stiffer and stiffer.

“I am sorry, brother,” he replied eventually. “I am so sorry.”

“Then…there is nothing to be done?”

“No. If there exists a way to prevent this then I do not know it.”

Hashirama stared up at him with a doleful face, their eyes holding each other in place for a small eternity, until finally his form seemed to droop and he reached out with one hand, pulling it back at the last second before his flame could touch the lacquered parchment of his wife’s form, unable to touch her even now. As his face crumpled even more Madara turned away and wondered if he should leave. This felt like a moment meant to be shared between family and the last thing he wanted would be to impose.

She might not be dead technically but the scene before him may as well have been a funeral. For all intents and purposes Mito was lost to them. While she certainly wasn’t the one he’d grown the closest to since arriving here Madara could still say that she meant as much to him as though she were his own sister-in-law. To lose her presence would change the entire dynamic of their little family group.

And wasn’t this just the wrong time for Madara to realize that he saw all of these poor cursed people as his family now, opposable thumbs or no? He always did have a terrible sense of irony.

“Will you lay her on the bed?” Hashirama requested in a voice so quiet it was nearly a whisper.

“Of course.”

Quick as if he’d been shocked by a bolt of lightning yet careful as though the fan between his hands were made of glass, Tobirama turned and laid Mito down to rest against the pillows as she had been when they entered the room. Hashirama hopped himself over to her side and crawled in to a small tin box that must serve as his own place to sleep without fearing he might light the rest of the room on fire by accident. With a whimper he lifted one arm out and reached for his wife only to draw it back and curl into himself, sinking entirely in to his box but for the top of his head resting against one edge where he could still gaze upon her still form.

“I believe I should like to be alone with her,” he told them and they nodded in solemn agreement.

Since Tobirama seemed beyond words or the ability to even think it fell to Madara to take him by the hand and pull them both from the room, back down the hall where they had passed a pleasant evening the night before, a happy memory that already felt years behind them. After encouraging his friend down on to the same sofa as before he cast around the room for a blanket and gathered as many things he could see that might count as one. The sake set, he noted, had mysteriously placed itself back in to its cupboard.

“Words escape me,” Tobirama murmured as several throws were tossed about his shoulders. “I cannot believe she faded so quickly – that she faded at all. It is beyond comprehension.”

“Beyond comprehension is a good way to put it. Are you doing okay?”

“Me?” The sad mask of his face cracked just enough for a sliver of surprise to shine through that someone might be thinking of him at a moment like this. Madara scoffed and sank down on the cushion next to him.

“Yes, you. I know how you drown yourself in guilt about everything so I’ll repeat my question. Are you doing okay?” He accompanied his words with his best approximation of a firm look to discourage any bullshit about being just fine. All it took was one look and anyone with eyes could see the idiot was not fine at all.

His guess was proven correct by the way his friend refused to meet his eyes. Madara scowled and poked him in the side.

“None of that, yeah?”

“Madara, I beg of you, tell me how am I meant to witness yet another of our dwindling number falling victim to slumber and _not_ look to myself as the cause?” Tobirama raked at his hair with both hands and then dropped them back in to his lap to stare wistfully at the inhuman claws on each finger. “How can I not be a monster?”

He looked up finally when he saw a human hand reach over to take hold of his own. “Because you love them.”

“What?”

“I have to believe that you are human because only a human could mourn for the loss of someone they love like you’re doing now. No monster could ever love as deeply as you do.” Madara squeezed their hands together and thought about pulling away but didn’t want to ruin the moment, not when he could finally see wheels turning behind those brilliantly red eyes. Tobirama blinked at him as though seeing for the first time.

“Because I…love them. I do love them.”

Madara huffed. “I could tell that.”

“This is- they are all trapped here in this state because of me. No, hush, listen. They are here like this so many years later because of me and yet as the years turns they have never faltered, their love for me has never faded. Whether I believed myself to be deserving or not.” His spine straightened like the light of revelation were filling him up and he pulled his hands away to stand up with something like awe in his face. “I do love them. And perhaps…perhaps that is enough.”

“Enough? What do you mean, enough for what?”

“To make me human.”

Almost before he could process those words Madara was blinded as the room was filled with a sudden light he couldn’t see the source of. Both of them cried out and lifted their hands to shield their eyes as a coarse voice sighed throughout the room with a terrible aching fondness, “_Finally_.”

The light seemed to last forever, burning through the spaces between his fingers until he cringed and wound his entire arms around his head, ducking down towards his chest in an effort to escape. In front of him he could hear the sounds of Tobirama struggling as though the light were hurting more than just his eyes but no matter how much he wished he could reach out the pain of lowering his own arms was just too great. He was forced to wait it out until finally the world grew dimmer once again and a cautious peek out from the safety of his self-made darkness revealed nothing more than the natural light of morning.

It also revealed that Tobirama was no longer in the room with him, replaced by an unknown – _gorgeous_ – man. After taking a second glance Madara was quickly forced to amend his statement. He knew those tattoos, that white skin, and most of all he knew those pretty red eyes all too well. Tobirama stared back at him out an achingly beautiful human face filled with the same stunned disbelief he was feeling himself. Only for a moment, though. Then he was raised his shaking hands and staring at them as though he’d never looked upon human fingers before, slowly twisting them back and forth, wriggling the digits and examining them from all angles to determine that he wasn’t hallucinating the sight before him. Madara was so distracted by the hands he almost failed to look down and see two very human legs with almost dainty white feet peeking out, bare underneath the long dark pants.

When he looked back up Tobirama met his gaze with lips parting in a slow smile that just kept growing and growing until it filled his entire face and Madara did the only thing he could: he blurted out his first thought.

“You’re still _tall_!”

Tobirama laughed and it was a beautiful sound. So like the laugh he already knew but smoother without the rough edges of sorrow that had tainted every moment of this man’s life for the last hundred years. Madara wanted so badly to bottle that sound, to keep it forever and relive this moment over and over.

He wanted to speak again but he couldn’t find the words. Then the door crashed open for the second time that morning and all thoughts of speaking were swept away by the figure that stumbled in to the room on wobbling legs, brown skin and a too-wide smile, the human embodiment of sheer joy pulling behind him a woman more beautiful than Madara's imagination could have ever composed. Red hair cascaded down past her waist in a silken waterfall but it was the delicate shape of her lips and the sharp eyes that identified her. She could be only Mito. Which meant there could only be one name for the massive tree of a man leading her, letting go of her wrist to throw himself unsteadily across the room.

“Tobirama! Oh Tobirama!” Hashirama fell in to his brother’s arms with tears already wet on his cheeks, holding him so tight it looked almost painful. Rather than complain Tobirama caught him up in a hug just as tight and buried his face in long brown hair shoulder.

“Brother,” he whispered, his voice shaking. “It is _good_ to see you as yourself again.” The look on his face said he wanted to protest when Hashirama pulled away but it was only to rest their foreheads together so they could look in to each other’s eyes.

“Not as good as it is to see you as I have always seen you. As I knew that you must someday again see yourself.”

The moment between them was simply too personal to watch. Madara turned away to offer an arm to Mito and pretend she couldn’t see him discretely wiping at his eyes. She was kind enough to allow him that delusion so he repaid her by offering his support as she trembled her way through relearning a body that she had not worn in much too long. It wasn’t until she had cycled through several expression of frustration that he realized she was not trembling with fatigue or with weakness but rather with effort; she was trying to move. How confusing it might have been to have legs after so many years of effortless flight.

Very gently and quietly so as not to attract attention to her mishap he reminded her that she needed to lift her legs if she wished to cross the space between her and the husband she had just today nearly abandoned to the ravages of time. She looked down at her own feet as though surprised to remember that she had automatically performed such movements when Hashirama pulled her in here. Madara wasn’t sure if he wanted to laugh because it was funny, coo because it was adorable, or mourn a little for all the parts of being human that she would need time to rediscover. In the end he did none of those things because he was too busy helping her not to fall over as she carefully shifted her weight from side to side, getting used to the sensation of using the muscles. Then she was pulling away from him and he held both hands at the ready should she topple over sideways but allowed her to go to her beloved on her own.

“Dearest husband,” she called softly in the same rich voice she had used to scold them all for misbehaving at the dinner table. Both of the brothers looked up at her in wonder and for a moment she allowed Tobirama to take her in a gentle embrace, murmuring apologies in her ear as one could only assume he’d just been whispering to Hashirama. It took a few long moments before he could bring himself to step away and hand her in to the arms of her husband, who received her with as much joy as if her face hadn’t been the first he must have seen when the magic was broken.

Tobirama watched their reunion for a moment until that too became too personal to watch and then he turned to meet Madara's gaze again. And again Madara wanted to find some momentous words inside himself to mark such a significant moment but it was hard to think around the revelation that, after so many months of trying to beat the truth of his own humanity in to this idiot’s head, it had finally happened. He was human. Before him stood a human being still tall and still pale but still so very much the friend he had grown so close to.

“You’re gorgeous,” he said before he could stop himself. Tobirama’s eyes widened and he seemed to pause as though trying to figure out how that was meant.

“Am I? You’ve always been rather fetching yourself.”

Madara spluttered. He really hadn’t expected the man to come back with something so blatantly flirtatious. Was it possible that he’d missed something? He was already running through some of their more recent conversations looking for any double entendre he might have missed when a rush of squealing laughter drifted in from down the hall and he was treated to the sight of Tobirama’s face lighting up all over again.

“My people!” he cried, taking Madara by the hand. “Why, the entire castle will have awakened! Come! Come!”

With an almost childish glee he spun for the door and pulled Madara along with him as he dashed out in to the hallway, rushing towards the sounds of unfamiliar voices all laughing and shouting together. Clearly his emotions had overwhelmed him, as was understandable in a moment such as this, but it was still a bit funny to see pale feet pounding down the carpeted hallway like an eager child. Then suddenly Madara had so many more things to look at than exposed feet. As they burst out of the royal apartments in to the rest of the castle they were met with the sight of a dozen or so people all standing together in a gaggle, hugging, sobbing, touching each other with awe in their faces. Tobirama gasped and froze for a moment until they spotted him and descended upon him to bow and reach for his arm, offering him the most heartfelt thanks the world had ever heard. He might have stood there all day if more voices didn’t catch his attention and drive him to explore further.

Around endless hallways he continued to run and always he pulled Madara along behind him to witness as he encountered more and more of the people he had lost over the years. Face after countless face passed them by, all different ages and filled with all different emotions too, and Tobirama grew only more jubilant with every one of them until finally they turned a corner to see Izuna coming in the opposite direction with an absolutely adorable young boy riding piggyback, shiny black curls bouncing with every step where they framed a happy cherub face.

“Madara! This is madness!” His words were a direct contrast to the way he laughed and jostled his little tagalong friend. “Look, it’s Kagami! Can you believe it? Right in front of my eyes! One second he’s small and sleeping on my pillow and the next _poof_ he’s a full sized kid!”

“I know, Tobirama did the same thing to me!”

“Holy shit! Tobirama!” Izuna stopped dead a foot away to stare at the still-towering pale figure holding Madara's wrist.

Kagami, on the other hand, had no such confusion about how to react. “Sensei! Sensei! I had forgotten you were truly so tall, sensei! Look!”

When he held out both arms over Izuna’s shoulders and wiggled his fingers, more dexterous than his little wooden hands had been before, it was such a cute sight Madara was surprised the three of them didn’t burst in to synchronized tears just to see the little mite this happy. Tobirama seemed at least a little overwhelmed though, unsurprisingly.

“Surely the handsomest fingers I have ever laid my eyes upon,” he praised, grinning in response to Kagami’s giggle.

“Will you hug me later sensei?”

“Not now?”

“Izuna promised me a ride upon his back for as long as I desired and I can feel the air! On my skin! It’s stupendous! Again, Izuna! Again!”

Hefting the boy up a little higher, Izuna nodded to both of them. Then he started off down the hallway again with a light-hearted, “Later, losers, we’ve got places to be! Zooooom! Where to next, Captain Kagami?”

Both Tobirama and Madara stood watching until the pair of them were out of sight seeking the fortunes of fun somewhere else in the castle. Although he knew how much his friend had probably wanted to have a proper reunion with Kagami it was easy for Madara to understand why Tobirama had let the boy go. No one could blame him for wanting to experience the small pleasures of humanity again. There would be plenty of time later for the boy to embarrass his king with overly emotional hugs and assorted declarations of joy.

“And where to next for us?” Madara asked, biting down on his bottom lip and hoping whatever expression he was making wasn’t too foolish.

“This way,” Tobirama breathed, taking off almost before he was finished forming the syllables, and when he pulled Madara away again it was down a familiar path they had both travelled countless times before.

Rounding the corridor towards the kitchens was a little hard to do at top speed with so many maids and cooks and scullery boys all choking the area with their tearful reunions but with a bit of weaving and fancy footwork similar to the kind they used when trading blows on the practice field the two of them managed to find their way. They came out at the far end of the hall from the room where Mito cooked and served the best meals she had been able to craft without hands. Madara thought for a moment to ask why they had come here specifically and it was only a moment after he realized he already knew when the reason presented itself with a course bellow.

“_Tobirama_!” Several heads in the hallways turn first to the source of that strident voice and then in the other direction to observe their frozen king. “You foul bastard of a pig farmer!”

“Cousin…”

“You cowardly fool, weak bespawling moron of the highest order!” The face that once hung in a painting just outside the doors of the kitchen gazing inward stopped in front of them with a mighty glare that softened infinitesimally as she added, “You had better have missed me!”

With that she caught Tobirama up in a hug with arms so thick Madara felt his eyes widen before he could catch himself. Instead of pushing her away Tobirama held her closer and murmured the same apologies he’d already made to the dozens of people who had caught his attention on the journey down here. They held each other for a long time, long enough to make it quite clear that this was an important woman in Tobirama’s life, and Madara could already feel his imagination running wild when they finally parted to clap each other on the shoulder one last time with the same gruff clearing of their throats.

“I cannot possibly express how much your presence has indeed been missed, dear Touka.”

“You could try, cousin. But that can wait for a time when we can all sit down and hear the entire story. Tell me, who is this? I do not know your face, stranger.” Touka, as Madara now recalled her name after hearing it again, stared at him with eyebrows raised in quite a suspicious manner. Were it not for the happy atmosphere filling them all to the brim he would have bristled immediately under that look. Tobirama’s hand on his arm helped a little too.

“It is my absolute pleasure to introduce you to Uchiha Madara, a living descendant of our most trusted advising family.” His friend glanced at him with warm eyes that Madara thought nothing of until he saw the way Touka narrowed her own in thought.

Her weight shifted almost as if to take a defensive stance and he wondered, for one terrifying heartbeat, if she were about to attack him. “What is he to you?” she asked instead.

A little embarrassed by the implication of that question, when he looked to the man beside him Madara was already blushing just a bit. When he understood the softness of the eyes looking back he feared his entire face might just burst in the flames and it was only made worse as Tobirama gathered himself enough to find the words for a reply somehow even more embarrassing than the implication had been.

“He is everything I have waited for and more.”

Obviously the only proper reaction to that was to go outside and bury himself in the garden now that the soil wasn’t going to replace itself every morning. Tempted as he was, Madara held his ground here and simply made himself as small as possible while the two of them continued catching up, not saying a word until Touka asked where her other cousin was and the three of them turned around to walk right back up the stairs to the royal apartments they had just come all the way down from.

The reunion between Hashirama and Touka was about as filled with tears as Madara had always suspected anything involving his overly-emotional friend would be. Mito, at the very least, held herself in a more ladylike manner, though her eyes did mist a little no matter how much she tried to deny it. All of them seemed to be having trouble keeping their bodily – _human_ – reactions in check after so long encased in lives of steel or wood or canvas. It was humbling to watch, if also a tiny bit sad. But mostly it was entertaining to see the usually quite composed Mito shed a tear as she spoke without even being aware or to watch Hashirama jump each time something brushed against him because he wasn’t used to physical sensation. The idiot even spent a solid five minutes dragging his fingernails against the skin of his palm and trying to find the right words for how that felt.

After so many people had slept for so long with none of them aware how much time had actually passed they knew they couldn’t all stay locked away in their rooms forever. Tobirama allowed himself an hour to properly greet his family as a whole once Kagami and Izuna slipped in to join them but after that he reluctantly left to greet more of his people and keep everyone calm, to answer what questions they had for him. Madara was tempted to go with him. The day was barely a few hours old and they had already shared a couple of moments that felt significant but he held himself back. He could wait. The rest of the people here in the castle had waited much longer than him and their issues probably felt a lot more pressing than his own.

Despite convincing himself it was the right thing to do it was still difficult to wait almost the entire day to find a moment he could be alone with Tobirama again. Several hours passed before any of the residents realized the slight tension in their bellies meant that they were hungry and the hubbub of everyone getting to experience the glories of real food again caused an uproar the likes of which neither Madara nor Izuna had ever borne witness to. Who would have thought food would be cause for such celebration?

Literally anyone. Madara felt like an idiot as soon as he thought that. Food was amazing and he couldn’t imagine having to live without it.

It was well in to the evening before he found the privacy he was looking for. Once everyone had eaten and most of the questions had been answered, when Tobirama was no longer required to be a king but able to take a few moments to just be a brother and a cousin and a friend again, he first spent a bit more time with his family all sitting together in the part of his living quarters where he first became human again. Madara tucked himself away in one of the couches and mostly spoke with Izuna and Kagami to allow the others a bit of space, biding his time until slowly the room began to clear as everyone reluctantly trundled off to bed.

As much as he himself was yawning, tired enough that he had fallen asleep on Izuna’s shoulder more than once, he held out until finally he was the last one present. Tobirama closed the door behind Touka, dragging her feet up the hall reluctantly as though terrified of going back to sleep, and turned towards his final guest with color on those beautiful high cheekbones.

“You are not tired, Madara?”

“I really really am,” he had to admit. “But I wanted to talk to you alone.”

“Oh? What did you wish to speak with me about?” By the look on the man’s face he already knew. Smarmy bastard probably just wanted to hear it out loud.

It was lucky for him that Madara was too impatient to play games. “You said something earlier than I wasn’t sure what you meant by. I was hoping you could clarify for me. When we met Touka in the hallway you introduced me and you told her that I was…that I was everything you were waiting for.”

He expected some blushing. Maybe a little stuttering or stumbling or words. His friend had been raised in a different time, by a different class, so it was nothing less than a shock for Tobirama to be so bold as to step closer and take both of his hands in an achingly gentle hold. The look in those pretty eyes he knew so well could have melted a better man than him. It was all he could do to lock his knees so he wouldn’t simply puddle on the floor with a weak cry of surrender, waves of feelings he hadn’t even noticed building up inside of him all rushing out together in a flood of emotion.

“When you came in to my life I could not have known then what you would become to me,” Tobirama said to him, his voice little more than a low rumble. “Every day I have spent with you at my side has been a blessing. At my lowest and weakest points you looked upon me and declared me human still, you saw worth in me when I believed there to be none, and as I learned more about you how could I help but to fall more deeply in love than I ever thought possible?”

“Oh my god.” Fighting hard against the prickling in the corners of his eyes, Madara could only tremble when Tobirama leaned in a little closer.

“There may be only a shadow of a chance that you return such sentiments but if there is any then I cannot help but to ask after it. You leave me helpless to my heart in a way I have never known. Madara, dearer to me than you can know, could you ever–!”

He probably had a hundred more of his fancy words stored up and just waiting to spill out but Madara couldn’t take it anymore. In one swift motion he lifted himself on to his toes and pressed their lips together because if Tobirama could be bold then damn it he could too. The instant they connected he groaned, glad he’d taken this step himself in case it took Tobirama forever to get here because this was apparently something he needed more than he’d known. Sometimes it was hard to tell when the idiot would be daring or when he would hold back because he’d been raised to think certain actions ‘unseemly’ or that moving too fast was simply not done. By the way he responded to the kiss with a soft noise of his own and pulled Madara closer it didn’t seem like that was going to be much of a problem.

They parted only when hands began to wander and both of them gasped, more startled than anything else. Only yesterday they had been friends and nothing more but Madara realized with less surprise than expected that they had been building towards this for quite some time now. He wondered when Tobirama had fallen in love with him; wondered too when he had fallen in love with Tobirama in turn.

“Would it be too forward of me to admit that I do not wish for you to leave?” Tobirama stroked his face with gentle fingers as he spoke, something deep in his eyes that required no definition, and Madara felt no need to resist the smirk that fought its way on to his face.

“Not if I feel the same. Is that your roundabout way of asking me to stay the night? I have to admit I wouldn’t have thought you would move so fast. Won’t people talk?”

“Let them. We are all of us whole and healthy again and I believe it is time for my brother to take his rightful place on the throne. A king, perhaps, must be cautious in the bonds he creates but a prince?” He lifted one shoulder in a deliberately casual shrug. “A prince may be free to fall in love, to allow passion to override his reason, or even to, say, allow the man he loves to rest in his bed rather than travel the daunting path back through the castle hallways.”

Madara bit his lip so he wouldn’t laugh. “Are you saying I’m too lazy to walk back to my own room?”

“Do not trouble me with your inferences again,” Tobirama sniffed haughtily.

“Mn. I’ll let it go this time. Maybe. You could kiss me again and convince me.”

So Tobirama kissed him again and Madara said nothing more as he allowed himself to be led deeper in the apartments. To sleep in the bed of a king wasn’t something he’d ever thought he might be doing and yet now that he was doing it the idea wasn’t nearly as incredible as the knowledge that he would be spending the night in _Tobirama’s_ bed. Laying his head on a pillow and closing his eyes knowing that when he opened them there would be a beloved face to greet him just like this morning – with a little less drama, of course.

He wondered briefly whether this place had returned to the memory of the rest of the world, if the village he’d grown up in remembered the castle only a few miles away, but that place felt so distant now after what felt like a lifetime here in a different world and he realized he honestly did not care about those who had never cared about him in return. The life he had in that backwater village had not been happy but what he had here? It may have started out rough, the way he had arrived was far from ideal, but Madara would not give up the life he’d built for anything. Nor would he be giving up the soft look in Tobirama’s eyes as they shut themselves away in a bedroom where the opulence was far outclassed by the shining beauty of a man who led him in.

Madara was glad he came here. He was glad that he had looked at Tobirama with open eyes. Glad that he had found what only Tobirama himself had forgotten was there.

The beauty in the beast.


End file.
